Putin’s Poison

Kiev An old Russian joke : “ Why did the security services agent cross to the other side of the Tomsk airport terminal ?
” Navalny is the 44-year old leader of the Russian opposition Progress Party and the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin .
Navalny has been arrested and jailed some 13 times by Russian authorities with the international community declaring on each occasion that the charges were fabricated .
During periods that he was incarcerated for his political activism , the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center categorized Navalny as a political prisoner .
This distinction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founded in the waning days of the Soviet Union to research and publicize the millions of summary executions , incidences of torture , and other human rights atrocities committed by the secret police apparatus .
By documenting and exposing these brutal excesses , the Memorial Human Rights Center had hoped to prevent them from happening again .
Instead , barely a generation later , Russia is run by an alumnus of that same infamous security apparatus .
And torture and murder are back on the menu .
Putin ’ s apparatus has spared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Navalny .
This obsessive urge to eradicate any mention of the opposition leader reached a high point of absurdity in February 2018 , a month before Putin ’ s most recent re-election .
Moscow had just been buried in a massive snowfall that was dubbed “ the storm of the century , ” with many residents becoming frustrated with the slow pace of the municipal snow removal crews .
Muscovites soon discovered that if they simply spray painted Navalny ’ s name on snowbanks or iced-over roads , then a brigade of snowplows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opposition leader was quoted as saying his “ jaw dropped ” at how well the prank worked and called the reaction of the city services “ state dementia at the service of man.
” On August 20 it became public that Putin ’ s regime had attempted a more permanent erasure via what has become the former KGB Lt. Col. ’ s favourite method of eliminating his enemies : poison .
Navalny had travelled to the Siberian cities of Novosibirsk and Tomsk as part of a corruption investigation and to meet with supporters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This made the Kremlin nervous , as its preferred candidates have suffered losses in local and regional elections in recent years .
( In 2018 the Putin-backed United Russia Governor in Khabarovsk lost in a landslide to a virtual unknown , Sergei Furgal , which was seen as an anti-Putin proxy vote . )
Navalny has long been under 24-hour surveillance , as he told the Financial Times last year : “ It ’ s been going on for quite some time , but I ’ d be lying if I told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t pay attention to it .
Some assholes are sitting next to you all the time.
” What is curious is that in the course of this trip , Navalny had been under usual near total blanket surveillance by marked and unmarked vehicles following his movements .
And then suddenly , and mysteriously , he wasn ’ t .
Shortly before Navalny consumed poisoned tea at a Tomsk airport café , the monitoring activity disappeared .
Which has—by total coincidence—made it possible for the person or persons responsible for the poisoning to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The implication from anonymous sources within the Russian security services who spoke to the Russian outlet Moskovskiy Komsomolets is that the poisoning was carried out by orders from a higher level—high enough to order a halt to the surveillance net .
Putin ’ s—and the KGB ’ s—love of toxins is legendary .
The Soviet-era secret services had a long tradition of exotic methods for murdering persons surreptitiously—most of them involving lethal substances and inventive delivery mechanisms .
One of the more such high-profile murders was carried out in the 1970s—in the U.K.—with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were developed in a special secret KGB laboratory—a dark , macabre , real-world version of the British intelligence services spy gadget factory from James Bond movies .
Boris Yeltsin , the first post-Soviet era president of the new independent Russia , had the lab mothballed as a gesture of conciliation to the West .
However , his successor , Vladimir Putin , made re-activating the lab one of his first official acts .
In early 2000 , the man who gave Putin his start in politics , former St. Petersburg mayor Anatoliy Sobchak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is now a long list of Putin associates and enemies who died ( or came close to it ) after being poisoned .
This history of murder prompted Russian writer Vikktor Shenderovich to denounce Navalny ’ s poisoning .
“ A criminal gang has been in power in the Russian Federation for a long time , ” he said on his Facebook account : Deadly to life is right .
After drinking the poisoned tea , Navalny fell violently ill mid-air .
His flight made an emergency landing in Omsk .
He was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a nearby hospital where he fell into a coma .
A news blackout as to Navalny ’ s condition descended on the hospital after Russian security agents showed up and told his doctors to stop talking .
A standoff then ensued as an air ambulance aircraft landed in Omsk to ferry Navalny to a Berlin clinic .
The aircraft was paid for by a Berlin-based charity and not the German government , but Navalny ’ s doctors would not release him to be airlifted until the opposition leader ’ s wife , Yulia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself .
Navalny remains in a coma , but the medical team treating him in Berlin state “ the clinical findings indicate intoxication by a substance from the group of active substances called cholinesterase inhibitors.
” Cholinesterase inhibitors , also known as anti-cholinesterase , are used in several types of medications but also in pesticides and nerve agents .
The chemical blocks an enzyme that controls messages sent from nerves to muscles and leaves the muscles unable to function properly .
This affects all major body functions , including breathing .
It has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a highly-sophisticated poison lab ’ s cookbook .
Navalny may have suffered permanent damage to his nervous system .
His doctors now believe he will be out of action for at least two months .
Germany , the U.K. and other E.U .
members are demanding a full and transparent investigation into this incident .
Good luck with that .
As Shenderovich wrote earlier this year , “ Russia is a police state , with all the ensuing consequences .
The level of state violence will grow : Putin and Co. drove @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of illegitimacy , and they simply don ’ t have an agenda besides their ongoing war with the world , a parade for their subjects and massacre for those who disagree.
” “ Deadly to life ” in almost every way one can imagine .

Kiev
An old Russian joke: “Why did the security services agent cross to the other side of the Tomsk airport terminal?”
Answer: “To poison Alexei Navalny’s tea.”
Navalny is the 44-year old leader of the Russian opposition Progress Party and the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Navalny has been arrested and jailed some 13 times by Russian authorities with the international community declaring on each occasion that the charges were fabricated.
During periods that he was incarcerated for his political activism, the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center categorized Navalny as a political prisoner.
This distinction is depressingly ironic since the MHRC was founded in the waning days of the Soviet Union to research and publicize the millions of summary executions, incidences of torture, and other human rights atrocities committed by the secret police apparatus. By documenting and exposing these brutal excesses, the Memorial Human Rights Center had hoped to prevent them from happening again.
Instead, barely a generation later, Russia is run by an alumnus of that same infamous security apparatus.
And torture and murder are back on the menu.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Putin’s apparatus has spared no effort in suppressing public exposure for Navalny. This obsessive urge to eradicate any mention of the opposition leader reached a high point of absurdity in February 2018, a month before Putin’s most recent re-election. Moscow had just been buried in a massive snowfall that was dubbed “the storm of the century,” with many residents becoming frustrated with the slow pace of the municipal snow removal crews.
Muscovites soon discovered that if they simply spray painted Navalny’s name on snowbanks or iced-over roads, then a brigade of snowplows would show up almost immediately. The opposition leader was quoted as saying his “jaw dropped” at how well the prank worked and called the reaction of the city services “state dementia at the service of man.”
On August 20 it became public that Putin’s regime had attempted a more permanent erasure via what has become the former KGB Lt. Col.’s favourite method of eliminating his enemies: poison.
Navalny had travelled to the Siberian cities of Novosibirsk and Tomsk as part of a corruption investigation and to meet with supporters in advance of upcoming local legislative elections. This made the Kremlin nervous, as its preferred candidates have suffered losses in local and regional elections in recent years. (In 2018 the Putin-backed United Russia Governor in Khabarovsk lost in a landslide to a virtual unknown, Sergei Furgal, which was seen as an anti-Putin proxy vote.)
Navalny has long been under 24-hour surveillance, as he told the Financial Times last year: “It’s been going on for quite some time, but I’d be lying if I told you it was routine and we don’t pay attention to it. Some assholes are sitting next to you all the time.”
What is curious is that in the course of this trip, Navalny had been under usual near total blanket surveillance by marked and unmarked vehicles following his movements. And then suddenly, and mysteriously, he wasn’t.
Shortly before Navalny consumed poisoned tea at a Tomsk airport café, the monitoring activity disappeared. Which has—by total coincidence—made it possible for the person or persons responsible for the poisoning to escape identification by the “authorities.”
The implication from anonymous sources within the Russian security services who spoke to the Russian outlet Moskovskiy Komsomolets is that the poisoning was carried out by orders from a higher level—high enough to order a halt to the surveillance net.
Putin’s—and the KGB’s—love of toxins is legendary.
The Soviet-era secret services had a long tradition of exotic methods for murdering persons surreptitiously—most of them involving lethal substances and inventive delivery mechanisms. One of the more such high-profile murders was carried out in the 1970s—in the U.K.—with a poison-tipped umbrella.
These assassination methods were developed in a special secret KGB laboratory—a dark, macabre, real-world version of the British intelligence services spy gadget factory from James Bond movies. Boris Yeltsin, the first post-Soviet era president of the new independent Russia, had the lab mothballed as a gesture of conciliation to the West.
However, his successor, Vladimir Putin, made re-activating the lab one of his first official acts. In early 2000, the man who gave Putin his start in politics, former St. Petersburg mayor Anatoliy Sobchak, became victim number one on what is now a long list of Putin associates and enemies who died (or came close to it) after being poisoned.
This history of murder prompted Russian writer Vikktor Shenderovich to denounce Navalny’s poisoning. “A criminal gang has been in power in the Russian Federation for a long time,” he said on his Facebook account:
The fact that members of this gang willingly use the state symbols of the state they have captured, that they wear tricolour badges, judicial robes, police uniforms, and journalist badges should not distract us from understanding the essence of the matter. The presence of the leader of the gang and his entourage of messianic and imperial hallucinations is an important psychiatric detail, but nothing more. They are deadly to life.
Deadly to life is right. After drinking the poisoned tea, Navalny fell violently ill mid-air. His flight made an emergency landing in Omsk. He was taken off the aircraft and rushed to a nearby hospital where he fell into a coma. A news blackout as to Navalny’s condition descended on the hospital after Russian security agents showed up and told his doctors to stop talking.
A standoff then ensued as an air ambulance aircraft landed in Omsk to ferry Navalny to a Berlin clinic. The aircraft was paid for by a Berlin-based charity and not the German government, but Navalny’s doctors would not release him to be airlifted until the opposition leader’s wife, Yulia, made a personal appeal to Putin himself.
Navalny remains in a coma, but the medical team treating him in Berlin state “the clinical findings indicate intoxication by a substance from the group of active substances called cholinesterase inhibitors.” Cholinesterase inhibitors, also known as anti-cholinesterase, are used in several types of medications but also in pesticides and nerve agents.
The chemical blocks an enzyme that controls messages sent from nerves to muscles and leaves the muscles unable to function properly. This affects all major body functions, including breathing. It has all the hallmarks of a product lifted from a highly-sophisticated poison lab’s cookbook.
Navalny may have suffered permanent damage to his nervous system. His doctors now believe he will be out of action for at least two months. Germany, the U.K. and other E.U. members are demanding a full and transparent investigation into this incident. Good luck with that.
As Shenderovich wrote earlier this year, “Russia is a police state, with all the ensuing consequences. The level of state violence will grow: Putin and Co. drove themselves long ago into a dingy corner of illegitimacy, and they simply don’t have an agenda besides their ongoing war with the world, a parade for their subjects and massacre for those who disagree.”
“Deadly to life” in almost every way one can imagine.


thebulwark--2020-08-26--The Power of Positive Thinking: Too Much and Never Enough

When published in 1952 , The Power of Positive Thinking was a progenitor of what came to be known as the “ prosperity gospel ” ( a belief popularized by televangelists that God intends Christians to be healthy and wealthy ) and one of the very first Christian “ self-help ” books .
America stood astride the globe , and the Greatest Generation was clamoring to catch up from the deprivations of the war years .
Americans were making everything from cars to babies at astounding rates and creating civic organizations and churches to support growing families and communities .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ message of optimism and self-improvement was perfectly suited to one of the most optimistic eras in American history .
The book ’ s teachings are straightforward , organized around 10 key principles , like the laws of Moses .
The author , Norman Vincent Peale , recommends visualizing success , drowning out negative thinking , and minimizing obstacles—pretty much a Tony Robbins seminar or a Sunday morning with Joel Osteen .
Certain Bible verses ( “ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me ” ; “ If God be for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” ) stripped of context , interpretation , and theology , are to be repeated 10 times per day to ward off the evil spirit of negative thought .
The purpose of these psychological and spiritual practices is to free individuals from self-doubt and feelings of inferiority and help them to become the people God truly intends them to be : happy , wealthy , popular , and professionally successful .
In a way , the principles of the book were as old as the country itself .
Ever since the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shores , prosperity has been interpreted as proof of “ election ” and poverty , by extension , of damnation .
( Forget what you read in the Sermon on the Mount , the poor aren ’ t blessed and even if they inherit the earth they ’ ll get nothing more than dirt . )
While it ’ s hard to imagine a successful , capitalist economy without it , Puritan Christianity often leaves Christians feeling exhausted , anxious , and guilt-ridden , sinners in the hands of an angry God who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says , “ You aren ’ t doing it right .
Try harder.
” Peale took a kinder , gentler tack than Jonathan Edwards .
Peale was exceptional for cutting the flock some spiritual slack , encouraging them to look for the sunny side and conquer their inferiority complexes .
In his world , you can have the economic gains minus the guilt , which seems perfectly suited to the American sensibility .
For a public with access to few effective mental health treatments—lithium had just come onto the market as a mood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demands of extroverted Americanism , The Power of Positive Thinking must have been a like a tonic , or perhaps a gin and tonic , something to soothe the wired , weary , worried soul .
The book sold millions of copies and was eventually translated into more than 40 languages , and Peale , from his pulpit at Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan , became central to the spiritual life of the family of Fred Trump Sr. , his wife , Mary , and the four Trump children , including the future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he could “ listen to Peale all day ” and “ be disappointed when it was over.
” He needn ’ t have worried : Peale ’ s ideas would take pride of place in the life of Trump ’ s family and America ’ s for decades to come .
The Power of Positive Thinking may have been a salve for the average , emotionally troubled , success-burdened American but it was also well suited to justifying and exacerbating the pathologies of the Trump family and businesses .
In her recent memoir @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How My Family Created the World ’ s Most Dangerous Man , Mary Trump ( the president ’ s niece who also happens to have a Ph.D. in psychology ) paints a portrait of Fred Trump Sr. as a sociopath , utterly uninterested in entering into the moral , emotional , and psychological world of his family or its members .
In keeping with Peale ’ s teaching , he would no more hear about his wife ’ s or children ’ s problems than he would accept a failed business deal .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ illnesses including debilitating osteoporosis , was in and out of the hospital ( which she appears to have enjoyed as a respite from her husband ) and lived much of her life in physical pain .
As she grimaced , Fred would just say , “ Everything ’ s great , right Toots ?
” refusing to acknowledge , much less accommodate , her illness .
Fred Sr. ’ s psycho-emotional stonewalling played out most acutely in relationship with his namesake , Fred Junior .
Never suited to the family business , Jr. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only to be bullied back into Trump Management , the family ’ s real estate company , by both Fred Sr. and Donald .
As recounted in Too Much and Never Enough , Fred Jr. was then further abused , repeatedly denied authority , second-guessed at every turn , and blamed for every problem , setback , and failure in a perverse tag-team between Fred Sr. and Donald .
The abuse fed his alcoholism , which , in the family ’ s Peale-informed understanding , was not a disease requiring treatment but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thinking .
When the son went to the father for help , Fred Sr. replied , “ Just give it a quarter turn on the mental carburetor ” or “ Just make up your mind , Fred.
” Fred Jr. replied , rather wanly , “ That ’ s like telling me to make up my mind to give up cancer.
” Fred Jr. ’ s deepening alcoholism only elicited increasing abuse from his father and brother seemingly under the theory that if they were hard enough on him he would turn around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ afflicted by fatal , alcohol-induced cardiac problems , no member of the family went with him to the hospital ( Donald Trump went to a movie instead ) .
Dying , it appears , is the result of late-stage negative thought .
These are the problem-solving strategies that Donald Trump brought to his marriages , six corporate bankruptcies , presidential campaign , and now , what increasingly appears to be a failed presidency .
The consistent element in each of these has been to deny negative realities and keep moving .
The casinos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump Vodka , Trump Steaks , Trump University .
.
.
all bear the same markings of hyper optimism and overpromise/underdeliver salesmanship .
Recorded on tape talking about sexual assault ?
No problem , just bluster your way through .
Tell your team , “ this doesn ’ t sound like me.
” He wasn ’ t so much denying the charge to the public as much as denying it to himself , turning away from a distasteful glimpse of himself in the mirror .
When he was presented with incontrovertible evidence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he didn ’ t just deny it ( and continue to do so ) he fired the messengers and shrank the White House offices that insisted on delivering the bad news .
Now we have Trump COVID-19 and it ’ s following the same pattern .
The virus is “ very well under control ” and “ going to fade away.
” Or it can be cured by malaria drugs or maybe some light or injected disinfectant .
( Or , as recently announced , overruling NIH experts to insist on an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ despite uncertain results on its efficacy . )
Slow down the testing and we ’ ll have fewer cases .
You see , conquering COVID-19 is just a matter of substituting positive thoughts for negative data .
Various theories have been floated to explain Trump ’ s resolute unwillingness to deal directly and truthfully with the crisis : stupidity ( he ’ s anything but stupid ) , arrogance , and deceit among them .
It ’ s really much simpler than that .
Trump ’ s just doing what he ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blinding himself to it , just the way Reverend Peale taught him and his father insisted upon .
It is sometimes said a little bit of religion is often worse than no religion .
My AEI colleague , Brad Wilcox , documented that men who identified as “ evangelical ” but infrequently attend church were more likely to engage in domestic violence than evangelicals who regularly attended church , mainline Protestants and those who never attend church .
Wilcox believes this results from a kind of doctrinal cherry-picking—big on authority , sovereignty , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like altruism and self-sacrifice .
Weak attachment to religious faith tends to put some of the worst behaviors on steroids .
As he lays out early in The Power of Positive Thinking , Peale wanted people to be hopeful , kind , and optimistic , and to become “ people persons.
” The Trump family heard the positive thinking , personal empowerment parts , which integrated easily with its win-at-all-cost ideology , but they , or at least Donald , missed the bits about seeking counsel from others and living a life of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and now the United States of America , the Power of Positive Thinking and its encouragement to irrational optimism , has helped make the American pandemic response a failure by almost any measure .
In a 2009 interview on failure with Psychology Today , the then-host of The Apprentice said he “ refused to be sucked into negative thinking on any level , even when the indications weren ’ t great.
” His optimism , though all-encompassing as it relates to himself , is abandoned in relationship to others .
Every person @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nakedly self-serving as he is .
Trump ’ s world is a dark one but also a sad and disappointing one in which he is always denied his due by “ nasty ” opponents , which includes anyone who goes so far as to demur from his claims of greatness .
Hobbes said human existence was a state of nature , a war of all against all .
The state of Trumpian nature pits all against him—and , more importantly , him against all , an anti-human worldview that stands Norman Vincent Peale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , The Power of Positive Thinking has turned out to be both too much , and at the same time , never enough .

When published in 1952, The Power of Positive Thinking was a progenitor of what came to be known as the “prosperity gospel” (a belief popularized by televangelists that God intends Christians to be healthy and wealthy) and one of the very first Christian “self-help” books. America stood astride the globe, and the Greatest Generation was clamoring to catch up from the deprivations of the war years. Americans were making everything from cars to babies at astounding rates and creating civic organizations and churches to support growing families and communities. The Power of Positive Thinking’s message of optimism and self-improvement was perfectly suited to one of the most optimistic eras in American history.
The book’s teachings are straightforward, organized around 10 key principles, like the laws of Moses. The author, Norman Vincent Peale, recommends visualizing success, drowning out negative thinking, and minimizing obstacles—pretty much a Tony Robbins seminar or a Sunday morning with Joel Osteen. Certain Bible verses (“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”; “If God be for us, who can be against us?”) stripped of context, interpretation, and theology, are to be repeated 10 times per day to ward off the evil spirit of negative thought. The purpose of these psychological and spiritual practices is to free individuals from self-doubt and feelings of inferiority and help them to become the people God truly intends them to be: happy, wealthy, popular, and professionally successful.
In a way, the principles of the book were as old as the country itself. Ever since the first buckled Puritan shoe stepped onto North American shores, prosperity has been interpreted as proof of “election” and poverty, by extension, of damnation. (Forget what you read in the Sermon on the Mount, the poor aren’t blessed and even if they inherit the earth they’ll get nothing more than dirt.) While it’s hard to imagine a successful, capitalist economy without it, Puritan Christianity often leaves Christians feeling exhausted, anxious, and guilt-ridden, sinners in the hands of an angry God who looks at their brokenness and suffering and says, “You aren’t doing it right. Try harder.”
Peale took a kinder, gentler tack than Jonathan Edwards. Peale was exceptional for cutting the flock some spiritual slack, encouraging them to look for the sunny side and conquer their inferiority complexes. In his world, you can have the economic gains minus the guilt, which seems perfectly suited to the American sensibility. For a public with access to few effective mental health treatments—lithium had just come onto the market as a mood stabilizer in 1948—and weighed down by the demands of extroverted Americanism, The Power of Positive Thinking must have been a like a tonic, or perhaps a gin and tonic, something to soothe the wired, weary, worried soul.
The book sold millions of copies and was eventually translated into more than 40 languages, and Peale, from his pulpit at Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, became central to the spiritual life of the family of Fred Trump Sr., his wife, Mary, and the four Trump children, including the future president. Donald Trump once recalled how he could “listen to Peale all day” and “be disappointed when it was over.” He needn’t have worried: Peale’s ideas would take pride of place in the life of Trump’s family and America’s for decades to come.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
The Power of Positive Thinking may have been a salve for the average, emotionally troubled, success-burdened American but it was also well suited to justifying and exacerbating the pathologies of the Trump family and businesses. In her recent memoir, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, Mary Trump (the president’s niece who also happens to have a Ph.D. in psychology) paints a portrait of Fred Trump Sr. as a sociopath, utterly uninterested in entering into the moral, emotional, and psychological world of his family or its members. In keeping with Peale’s teaching, he would no more hear about his wife’s or children’s problems than he would accept a failed business deal. Mary, a woman who suffered multiple illnesses including debilitating osteoporosis, was in and out of the hospital (which she appears to have enjoyed as a respite from her husband) and lived much of her life in physical pain. As she grimaced, Fred would just say, “Everything’s great, right Toots?” refusing to acknowledge, much less accommodate, her illness.
Fred Sr.’s psycho-emotional stonewalling played out most acutely in relationship with his namesake, Fred Junior. Never suited to the family business, Jr. attempted to strike out on his own only to be bullied back into Trump Management, the family’s real estate company, by both Fred Sr. and Donald. As recounted in Too Much and Never Enough, Fred Jr. was then further abused, repeatedly denied authority, second-guessed at every turn, and blamed for every problem, setback, and failure in a perverse tag-team between Fred Sr. and Donald. The abuse fed his alcoholism, which, in the family’s Peale-informed understanding, was not a disease requiring treatment but the result of Fred Jr.’s negative thinking. When the son went to the father for help, Fred Sr. replied, “Just give it a quarter turn on the mental carburetor” or “Just make up your mind, Fred.” Fred Jr. replied, rather wanly, “That’s like telling me to make up my mind to give up cancer.” Fred Jr.’s deepening alcoholism only elicited increasing abuse from his father and brother seemingly under the theory that if they were hard enough on him he would turn around. Even in his final crisis, afflicted by fatal, alcohol-induced cardiac problems, no member of the family went with him to the hospital (Donald Trump went to a movie instead). Dying, it appears, is the result of late-stage negative thought.
These are the problem-solving strategies that Donald Trump brought to his marriages, six corporate bankruptcies, presidential campaign, and now, what increasingly appears to be a failed presidency. The consistent element in each of these has been to deny negative realities and keep moving. The casinos, the airline, the football league, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump University . . . all bear the same markings of hyper optimism and overpromise/underdeliver salesmanship. Recorded on tape talking about sexual assault? No problem, just bluster your way through. Tell your team, “this doesn’t sound like me.” He wasn’t so much denying the charge to the public as much as denying it to himself, turning away from a distasteful glimpse of himself in the mirror. When he was presented with incontrovertible evidence of Russian interference in domestic U.S. politics, he didn’t just deny it (and continue to do so) he fired the messengers and shrank the White House offices that insisted on delivering the bad news.
Now we have Trump COVID-19 and it’s following the same pattern. The virus is “very well under control” and “going to fade away.” Or it can be cured by malaria drugs or maybe some light or injected disinfectant. (Or, as recently announced, overruling NIH experts to insist on an emergency use authorization for convalescent blood plasma despite uncertain results on its efficacy.) Slow down the testing and we’ll have fewer cases. You see, conquering COVID-19 is just a matter of substituting positive thoughts for negative data. Various theories have been floated to explain Trump’s resolute unwillingness to deal directly and truthfully with the crisis: stupidity (he’s anything but stupid), arrogance, and deceit among them. It’s really much simpler than that. Trump’s just doing what he’s always done: conquering the challenge by blinding himself to it, just the way Reverend Peale taught him and his father insisted upon.
It is sometimes said a little bit of religion is often worse than no religion. My AEI colleague, Brad Wilcox, documented that men who identified as “evangelical” but infrequently attend church were more likely to engage in domestic violence than evangelicals who regularly attended church, mainline Protestants and those who never attend church. Wilcox believes this results from a kind of doctrinal cherry-picking—big on authority, sovereignty, and power but closed to other-directed teachings like altruism and self-sacrifice. Weak attachment to religious faith tends to put some of the worst behaviors on steroids.
As he lays out early in The Power of Positive Thinking, Peale wanted people to be hopeful, kind, and optimistic, and to become “people persons.” The Trump family heard the positive thinking, personal empowerment parts, which integrated easily with its win-at-all-cost ideology, but they, or at least Donald, missed the bits about seeking counsel from others and living a life of dependence upon God. For Donald Trump, and now the United States of America, the Power of Positive Thinking and its encouragement to irrational optimism, has helped make the American pandemic response a failure by almost any measure.
In a 2009 interview on failure with Psychology Today, the then-host of The Apprentice said he “refused to be sucked into negative thinking on any level, even when the indications weren’t great.” His optimism, though all-encompassing as it relates to himself, is abandoned in relationship to others. Every person Trump meets is assumed to be as nakedly self-serving as he is. Trump’s world is a dark one but also a sad and disappointing one in which he is always denied his due by “nasty” opponents, which includes anyone who goes so far as to demur from his claims of greatness. Hobbes said human existence was a state of nature, a war of all against all. The state of Trumpian nature pits all against him—and, more importantly, him against all, an anti-human worldview that stands Norman Vincent Peale on his head. For Donald Trump, The Power of Positive Thinking has turned out to be both too much, and at the same time, never enough.


thebulwark--2020-08-26--How the Fight for Women’s Suffrage Was Won

Suffrage Women ’ s Long Battle for the Vote by Ellen Carol DuBois Simon & Schuster , 383 pp.
, $ 28 During the centennial celebration of the American founding in Philadelphia ’ s Independence Park on July 4 , 1876 , a small band of women led by Susan B. Anthony unexpectedly took the stage .
“ I present to you a declaration of rights from the women citizens of the United States , ” Anthony stated firmly as she thrust a sheet of parchment into the bewildered hands of Vice President Thomas Ferry .
Her mission accomplished , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ podium to attend a rally at the opposite end of the square , where Anthony read a copy of the document aloud to an eager crowd .
Among the numerous “ articles of impeachment ” that the declaration detailed stood “ Universal Manhood Suffrage , ” which , by “ establishing an aristocracy of sex , imposes upon the women of this nation a more absolute and cruel despotism than monarchy ; in that , woman finds a political master in her father , husband , brother , son.
” Anthony ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many powerful moments that UCLA historian Ellen Carol DuBois describes in Suffrage .
Drawing on her background as one of the preeminent scholars of women ’ s history in the United States , DuBois deftly compresses the seventy-year struggle for female voting rights into a lucidly written volume that is essential reading as the nation celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment this year .
Although Suffrage is largely a work of synthesis , it offers a vital argument countering contemporary claims that the campaign for suffrage was advanced solely for the benefit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a movement that was both deeply intertwined with other social justice causes—such as abolition and workers ’ rights—and propelled by an incredibly diverse cast of women .
However , like the Revolution that birthed the United States , the fight for women ’ s political equality suffered from setbacks , moral failures , and internal quandaries that dulled the sheen of its triumph on August 26 , 1920 .
DuBois is unafraid to acknowledge that the Nineteenth Amendment left much work unfinished , but her book is an important reminder of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bid for the vote .
There is little reason to believe that suffrage was inevitable .
DuBois makes it very clear that the belief in keeping women in a childlike state of legal dependence upon fathers and husbands for the sake of social stability was one that , in the words of suffragette Ida Husted Harper , “ died hard.
” Perhaps that ’ s because the vote was necessary to secure the liberal notion , in the words of Anthony ’ s declaration , that “ woman was made first for her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to herself.
” If there is a subtext to the struggle for the vote , it is the tension inherent to a movement that required women to work as a collective to assert their right to live as individuals .
Suffrage opens with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and the drafting of the Declaration of Sentiments , one of the earliest political documents articulating the need to correct women ’ s second-class social , economic , and political status in the United States .
There DuBois introduces us to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the most important working partnerships in American history.
” Cady Stanton brought a fearsome intellect and vision to the burgeoning women ’ s rights movement , complementing Anthony ’ s masterly ability to organize campaigns and coordinate resources on the ground .
They were the first of many dyads of friends , mothers , daughters , and rivals that shaped the movement through its various stages .
Both Cady Stanton and Anthony also came from families involved in anti-slavery activism , and DuBois underlines the significant overlap between abolitionism and the women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Frederick Douglass attended the Seneca Falls gathering and forcefully argued in favor of including a resolution to secure women ’ s suffrage in Declaration of Sentiments .
A few years later , at another women ’ s convention in Ohio , Sojourner Truth sharply underscored the multiple layers of oppression that black women faced on account of their race and sex .
And when the Civil War erupted , Cady Stanton and Anthony launched the Women ’ s Loyal National League , America ’ s first political organization created by women , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( which would help support passage of the Thirteenth Amendment ) .
Cady Stanton and Anthony also worked with Douglass and Lucretia Mott to create the American Equal Rights Association , a group that fused abolitionist and women ’ s suffrage circles to pursue universal suffrage and equal political rights for all Americans after the war ’ s end .
DuBois carefully explains how the debate over the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments led to a terrible rupture in this otherwise natural alliance .
Believing that the passage of the amendments would be indispensable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violence , black feminists like Douglass and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper backed both amendments even though they excluded female suffrage .
Disappointingly , some suffrage leaders ( including Cady Stanton ) began espousing racist , classist , and nativist rhetoric as they lamented the enshrinement of male privilege in the Constitution .
While DuBois never excuses this response , she contextualizes the profound betrayal felt by many women ’ s rights activists on account of this omission and the unresolved racial oppression that forced former allies of women ’ s suffrage to make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the thorny social and political realities that faced early suffragettes , DuBois demonstrates historical writing at its best .
To compound this setback , it is at this juncture that the women ’ s rights movement itself split into two factions : the National Woman Suffrage Association , led by Cady Stanton , Anthony , and Isabella Beecher Hooker , and the American Woman Suffrage Association , led by Lucy Stone and her husband , Henry Blackwell .
NWSA restricted leadership to women and encouraged them to protest by voting in defiance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ furthered attempts to locate a women ’ s right to vote in the existing Constitution , with members brilliantly but unsuccessfully arguing that Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment implicitly included universal enfranchisement as a protected “ privilege ” accorded to American citizens .
AWSA , on the other hand , allowed men and women to participate in its leadership and focused on building tightly run associations across the nation that could methodically advance support for women ’ s enfranchisement at the local level .
Although each organization had misgivings about the other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ radical action and gradual reform that are necessary for enacting lasting political change .
Although it ’ s difficult for DuBois to avoid wrapping her narrative around the activities of famous suffrage leaders like Cady Stanton , Stone , and Anthony ( whom she especially seems to admire ) , Suffrage is studded with the contributions of women from all walks of life who joined the fight for the vote .
For example , DuBois introduces her readers to Rose Schneiderman , a Jewish immigrant from Poland who argued that suffrage was critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that there would never again be tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire , which claimed the lives of over one hundred ( mostly female ) garment workers in 1911 .
She also highlights the voice of anti-lynching activist and investigative reporter Ida B .
Wells , who criticized the movement ’ s willingness to cater to the interests of Southern suffragettes instead of actively denouncing the campaigns of racial terror in the Jim Crow South .
Schneiderman and Wells formed a part of the following cohort of women who drove the suffrage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twentieth centuries .
DuBois notes how this period marked the dawn of the “ New Woman , ” who pushed against circumscribed female roles by pursuing college degrees and economic independence .
Alice Paul was a chief exemplar of this new breed , assuming NWSA ’ s visionary mantle by founding the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage ( later reformed as the National Woman ’ s Party ) .
While older suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt took control of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and carried on the AWSA ’ s bolstering of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feminists who formed the bulk of the NWP organized defiant parades , campaigned energetically against politicians who opposed suffrage , and endured imprisonment and hunger strikes for picketing the White House .
“ Suffragists had been appealing to the public ’ s reason with very limited results , ” DuBois explains , so “ this new generation went for the emotions : excitement , attraction , desire.
” Although DuBois clearly views Paul ’ s bold activism as essential to driving public enthusiasm for female voting rights , she demonstrates special appreciation for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through conventional , but no less arduous political campaigns .
Suffrage shines when recounting in detail the tenacity of local women who helped to initiate the slow wave of state amendments granting the vote in Western states .
But the most gripping moment in DuBois ’ s book is her exploration of the multi-year crusade to secure such an amendment in New York .
Although suffragettes endured multiple crushing losses , they always rebounded , adapting their tactics to convince a larger swath of voters ( a task that relied heavily on outreach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ navigate Tammany Hall ’ s control of the political landscape .
When New York finally passed a suffrage referendum in 1915 , Catt aptly called it the “ Gettysburg of the woman suffrage movement.
” Success in New York convinced Congress that there was sufficient national support for suffrage to seriously consider an amendment to the Constitution .
In her final chapters , DuBois again highlights the importance of skillful lobbyists like Helen Hamilton Gardener , who quietly cultivated relationships with senators , representatives , and even President Woodrow Wilson to generate support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , whose years of working with politicians in Wisconsin enabled that state to be the first to ratify the suffrage amendment in 1919 .
And in the end , it was a gentle request from his mother that convinced a 24-year-old legislator to cast the deciding ballot in Tennessee securing ratification in August 1920 .
If Suffrage makes anything clear , it ’ s that the long road to political equality for women could not have been walked alone .
The opposition was too fierce and too cruel .
It is painful to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the threat of “ petticoat rule , ” the men and boys who sexually harassed women as they marched in streets across the nation , the anti-suffragettes who internalized and regurgitated canards of women ’ s mental inferiority and unsuitability for politics .
Contemplating the widespread ridicule and ire that the mere suggestion of female autonomy once aroused is deeply unsettling , especially when it seems that such contempt has never completely gone away .
The suffrage movement succeeded because , paradoxically , it sewed a wide tent out of this perverse denial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its members women ( and many men ) of almost every race , creed , and marital status .
It ’ s why DuBois ’ s cast of characters includes socialists and wealthy socialites , college students and former slaves , conservative temperance activists and liberal advocates for free love .
As a result , the unity of purpose it engendered would not survive the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment .
Not only did the amendment fail to adequately protect voting rights for black and Native American women , later attempts to create @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the interests of all women failed precisely because they rejected the emphasis on individuality that had given the women ’ s rights movement its greatest strength .
It is important to keep this tension in mind .
Enfranchisement was never supposed to be a panacea for all the problems of womankind .
But it was the foundational tool allowing women to fully assume the responsibilities of citizenship in a democratic republic .
The “ strongest reason ” for emancipating women , Cady Stanton noted in one of her final public addresses , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her own individual life .
.
.
.
Who , I ask you , can take , dare take on himself the rights , the duties , the responsibilities of another human soul ?
” Cady Stanton ’ s unequivocal emphasis on female self-reliance is perhaps disorienting , especially knowing that her work to advance women ’ s rights depended on her partnerships with others .
But perhaps Cady Stanton ’ s life , like the lives of many of her fellow activists , offers a challenge for our own time .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suffrage , women should ask ourselves how we can use our votes not just to secure our own particular vision of happiness , but that of our sisters as well .
We do not need to treat politics as the zero-sum game that once emboldened men to deny women their place in the political arena , convinced that their votes were at best superfluous and at worst dangerous to the social order .
With every accusation we lob at each other for voting “ against women ’ s interests , ” we participate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that dogged suffragettes for decades .
Like the champions for female voting rights who found the keys to their emancipation in our nation ’ s founding documents , we should recover ownership of the opportunities for pluralism that our political structure affords us .
We should do our best assume the difficult , but important work of carving out space , solidarity , and support for both the female entrepreneur and the stay-at-home-mom ; the woman in the boardroom and the woman behind the lunch counter ; the pro-life volunteer at a pregnancy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from discrimination .
It would be the greatest tribute we could pay to the generations of women who hung together , however imperfectly , to become masters of their own fates and captains of their own souls .

Suffrage
Women’s Long Battle for the Vote
by Ellen Carol DuBois
Simon & Schuster, 383 pp., $28
During the centennial celebration of the American founding in Philadelphia’s Independence Park on July 4, 1876, a small band of women led by Susan B. Anthony unexpectedly took the stage. “I present to you a declaration of rights from the women citizens of the United States,” Anthony stated firmly as she thrust a sheet of parchment into the bewildered hands of Vice President Thomas Ferry. Her mission accomplished, she and her companions stepped off the podium to attend a rally at the opposite end of the square, where Anthony read a copy of the document aloud to an eager crowd. Among the numerous “articles of impeachment” that the declaration detailed stood “Universal Manhood Suffrage,” which, by “establishing an aristocracy of sex, imposes upon the women of this nation a more absolute and cruel despotism than monarchy; in that, woman finds a political master in her father, husband, brother, son.”
Anthony’s protest in Philadelphia is just one of many powerful moments that UCLA historian Ellen Carol DuBois describes in Suffrage. Drawing on her background as one of the preeminent scholars of women’s history in the United States, DuBois deftly compresses the seventy-year struggle for female voting rights into a lucidly written volume that is essential reading as the nation celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment this year.
Although Suffrage is largely a work of synthesis, it offers a vital argument countering contemporary claims that the campaign for suffrage was advanced solely for the benefit of white women. DuBois presents suffrage as a movement that was both deeply intertwined with other social justice causes—such as abolition and workers’ rights—and propelled by an incredibly diverse cast of women. However, like the Revolution that birthed the United States, the fight for women’s political equality suffered from setbacks, moral failures, and internal quandaries that dulled the sheen of its triumph on August 26, 1920.
DuBois is unafraid to acknowledge that the Nineteenth Amendment left much work unfinished, but her book is an important reminder of the powerful obstacles that suffragettes faced in their bid for the vote. There is little reason to believe that suffrage was inevitable. DuBois makes it very clear that the belief in keeping women in a childlike state of legal dependence upon fathers and husbands for the sake of social stability was one that, in the words of suffragette Ida Husted Harper, “died hard.” Perhaps that’s because the vote was necessary to secure the liberal notion, in the words of Anthony’s declaration, that “woman was made first for her own happiness, with the absolute right to herself.” If there is a subtext to the struggle for the vote, it is the tension inherent to a movement that required women to work as a collective to assert their right to live as individuals.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Suffrage opens with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and the drafting of the Declaration of Sentiments, one of the earliest political documents articulating the need to correct women’s second-class social, economic, and political status in the United States. There DuBois introduces us to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Anthony, whose “friendship was one of the most important working partnerships in American history.” Cady Stanton brought a fearsome intellect and vision to the burgeoning women’s rights movement, complementing Anthony’s masterly ability to organize campaigns and coordinate resources on the ground. They were the first of many dyads of friends, mothers, daughters, and rivals that shaped the movement through its various stages.
Both Cady Stanton and Anthony also came from families involved in anti-slavery activism, and DuBois underlines the significant overlap between abolitionism and the women’s rights movement. For example, Frederick Douglass attended the Seneca Falls gathering and forcefully argued in favor of including a resolution to secure women’s suffrage in Declaration of Sentiments. A few years later, at another women’s convention in Ohio, Sojourner Truth sharply underscored the multiple layers of oppression that black women faced on account of their race and sex. And when the Civil War erupted, Cady Stanton and Anthony launched the Women’s Loyal National League, America’s first political organization created by women, for the purpose of collecting anti-slavery petitions (which would help support passage of the Thirteenth Amendment). Cady Stanton and Anthony also worked with Douglass and Lucretia Mott to create the American Equal Rights Association, a group that fused abolitionist and women’s suffrage circles to pursue universal suffrage and equal political rights for all Americans after the war’s end.
DuBois carefully explains how the debate over the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments led to a terrible rupture in this otherwise natural alliance. Believing that the passage of the amendments would be indispensable for protecting newly freed slaves from Southern violence, black feminists like Douglass and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper backed both amendments even though they excluded female suffrage. Disappointingly, some suffrage leaders (including Cady Stanton) began espousing racist, classist, and nativist rhetoric as they lamented the enshrinement of male privilege in the Constitution. While DuBois never excuses this response, she contextualizes the profound betrayal felt by many women’s rights activists on account of this omission and the unresolved racial oppression that forced former allies of women’s suffrage to make difficult compromises. In her nuanced portrayal of the thorny social and political realities that faced early suffragettes, DuBois demonstrates historical writing at its best.
To compound this setback, it is at this juncture that the women’s rights movement itself split into two factions: the National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Cady Stanton, Anthony, and Isabella Beecher Hooker, and the American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone and her husband, Henry Blackwell. NWSA restricted leadership to women and encouraged them to protest by voting in defiance of local law. The group also furthered attempts to locate a women’s right to vote in the existing Constitution, with members brilliantly but unsuccessfully arguing that Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment implicitly included universal enfranchisement as a protected “privilege” accorded to American citizens. AWSA, on the other hand, allowed men and women to participate in its leadership and focused on building tightly run associations across the nation that could methodically advance support for women’s enfranchisement at the local level. Although each organization had misgivings about the other, they represented the twin forces of radical action and gradual reform that are necessary for enacting lasting political change.
Although it’s difficult for DuBois to avoid wrapping her narrative around the activities of famous suffrage leaders like Cady Stanton, Stone, and Anthony (whom she especially seems to admire), Suffrage is studded with the contributions of women from all walks of life who joined the fight for the vote. For example, DuBois introduces her readers to Rose Schneiderman, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who argued that suffrage was critical for improving workplace conditions for women so that there would never again be tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which claimed the lives of over one hundred (mostly female) garment workers in 1911. She also highlights the voice of anti-lynching activist and investigative reporter Ida B. Wells, who criticized the movement’s willingness to cater to the interests of Southern suffragettes instead of actively denouncing the campaigns of racial terror in the Jim Crow South.
Schneiderman and Wells formed a part of the following cohort of women who drove the suffrage movement through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. DuBois notes how this period marked the dawn of the “New Woman,” who pushed against circumscribed female roles by pursuing college degrees and economic independence. Alice Paul was a chief exemplar of this new breed, assuming NWSA’s visionary mantle by founding the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (later reformed as the National Woman’s Party). While older suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt took control of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and carried on the AWSA’s bolstering of local organizations, Paul and the younger feminists who formed the bulk of the NWP organized defiant parades, campaigned energetically against politicians who opposed suffrage, and endured imprisonment and hunger strikes for picketing the White House. “Suffragists had been appealing to the public’s reason with very limited results,” DuBois explains, so “this new generation went for the emotions: excitement, attraction, desire.”
Although DuBois clearly views Paul’s bold activism as essential to driving public enthusiasm for female voting rights, she demonstrates special appreciation for women who won battles for the vote through conventional, but no less arduous political campaigns. Suffrage shines when recounting in detail the tenacity of local women who helped to initiate the slow wave of state amendments granting the vote in Western states. But the most gripping moment in DuBois’s book is her exploration of the multi-year crusade to secure such an amendment in New York. Although suffragettes endured multiple crushing losses, they always rebounded, adapting their tactics to convince a larger swath of voters (a task that relied heavily on outreach efforts by black women) and cleverly navigate Tammany Hall’s control of the political landscape. When New York finally passed a suffrage referendum in 1915, Catt aptly called it the “Gettysburg of the woman suffrage movement.”
Success in New York convinced Congress that there was sufficient national support for suffrage to seriously consider an amendment to the Constitution. In her final chapters, DuBois again highlights the importance of skillful lobbyists like Helen Hamilton Gardener, who quietly cultivated relationships with senators, representatives, and even President Woodrow Wilson to generate support for the vote, and Ada James, whose years of working with politicians in Wisconsin enabled that state to be the first to ratify the suffrage amendment in 1919. And in the end, it was a gentle request from his mother that convinced a 24-year-old legislator to cast the deciding ballot in Tennessee securing ratification in August 1920.
If Suffrage makes anything clear, it’s that the long road to political equality for women could not have been walked alone. The opposition was too fierce and too cruel. It is painful to read of the politicians who angrily denounced the threat of “petticoat rule,” the men and boys who sexually harassed women as they marched in streets across the nation, the anti-suffragettes who internalized and regurgitated canards of women’s mental inferiority and unsuitability for politics. Contemplating the widespread ridicule and ire that the mere suggestion of female autonomy once aroused is deeply unsettling, especially when it seems that such contempt has never completely gone away.
The suffrage movement succeeded because, paradoxically, it sewed a wide tent out of this perverse denial of female individuality. It counted among its members women (and many men) of almost every race, creed, and marital status. It’s why DuBois’s cast of characters includes socialists and wealthy socialites, college students and former slaves, conservative temperance activists and liberal advocates for free love. As a result, the unity of purpose it engendered would not survive the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Not only did the amendment fail to adequately protect voting rights for black and Native American women, later attempts to create a single organization that could somehow comprise the interests of all women failed precisely because they rejected the emphasis on individuality that had given the women’s rights movement its greatest strength.
It is important to keep this tension in mind. Enfranchisement was never supposed to be a panacea for all the problems of womankind. But it was the foundational tool allowing women to fully assume the responsibilities of citizenship in a democratic republic. The “strongest reason” for emancipating women, Cady Stanton noted in one of her final public addresses, “is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life. . . . Who, I ask you, can take, dare take on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human soul?”
Cady Stanton’s unequivocal emphasis on female self-reliance is perhaps disorienting, especially knowing that her work to advance women’s rights depended on her partnerships with others. But perhaps Cady Stanton’s life, like the lives of many of her fellow activists, offers a challenge for our own time. As we embark on the next century of suffrage, women should ask ourselves how we can use our votes not just to secure our own particular vision of happiness, but that of our sisters as well. We do not need to treat politics as the zero-sum game that once emboldened men to deny women their place in the political arena, convinced that their votes were at best superfluous and at worst dangerous to the social order. With every accusation we lob at each other for voting “against women’s interests,” we participate in the same pernicious denial of individuality that dogged suffragettes for decades.
Like the champions for female voting rights who found the keys to their emancipation in our nation’s founding documents, we should recover ownership of the opportunities for pluralism that our political structure affords us. We should do our best assume the difficult, but important work of carving out space, solidarity, and support for both the female entrepreneur and the stay-at-home-mom; the woman in the boardroom and the woman behind the lunch counter; the pro-life volunteer at a pregnancy clinic and the trans women seeking protection from discrimination. It would be the greatest tribute we could pay to the generations of women who hung together, however imperfectly, to become masters of their own fates and captains of their own souls.


thebulwark--2020-08-26--The Degradation of Democratic Norms Here Makes It Harder to Promote Them Abroad

On August 9 , longtime Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko engaged in massive fraud to steal re-election for a sixth presidential term .
( His previous “ victories , ” except for his first in 1994 , were hardly more honest . )
The day after the election , Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a reasonably strong statement , calling the election “ not free and fair ” and appropriately condemning the use of violence against protesters and journalists ( though the United States since has gone largely silent ) .
But in Belarus and around the world , some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States has to criticize others , given President Trump ’ s refusal to acknowledge that he would accept the results of the U.S. presidential election in November should he not be declared the winner .
The apparent degradation of American democracy might lead some toward disengagement in democracy promotion and moral international leadership .
This would be a twofold mistake .
By ignoring our role as the foremost champion of democracy around the world , we would give comfort and support to foreign despots .
Given the use of federal forces , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ June 1 to clear Lafayette Square in Washington , D.C. , of peaceful protesters and the deployment of federal security agents without identification and in unmarked cars to Portland , Oregon , the similarities between the United States under President Trump and Belarus under Lukashenko are discomforting .
Of course , America is still a special country and , for now , vastly more fair and just than Belarus .
In Portland , some protesters reported being detained without apparent cause .
In Belarus , protesters—and even those not protesting—are detained without cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are often beaten and tortured in police custody .
In Portland and Washington , federal law enforcement used unnecessary and shocking violence against peaceful protesters .
In Belarus , police used live ammunition against what they described as a “ group of aggressive citizens with metal rods in their hands.
” Lukashenko has threatened to use the Belarusian army against protesters .
Trump ’ s efforts to involve the military in domestic policing have met with resistance from the Pentagon .
But the non-violent aspects of authoritarianism are much more similar .
Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including through various obstacles to mail-in voting , has parallels with Lukashenko ’ s efforts to steal the election in Belarus .
Trump ’ s persistent refusal to say he will accept the outcome of any election in which he isn ’ t the winner betrays a view of elections that Lukashenko would appreciate .
Under normal circumstances , governments across Europe and the free world—not to mention the brave Belarusians on the streets—would look to Washington to lead the response , both public and private , to such an offense to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Steve Biegun , a very decent man , is in Europe this week to address the situation .
But an old familiar form of whataboutism is returning : Who are the Americans to criticize others , given what ’ s happening inside its own borders ?
At the height of the Cold War and the civil rights movement , the Soviets would parry any accusation of human rights abuses by invoking the horrors and indignities of Jim Crow and the deep injustice of segregation , as if that excused the Gulag .
Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Portland and respond , “ Tu quoque .
” Of course , the task is not any easier when Trump praises authoritarian leaders , such as when he “ fell in love ” with North Korea ’ s Kim or called Egypt ’ s el-Sisi his “ favorite dictator.
” Trump ’ s own whataboutism doesn ’ t help either .
When asked about the murders of Russian journalists in 2017 , for example , he replied , “ There are a lot of killers .
You think our country ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of many opportunities when Trump declined to criticize Putin , as well as the worst kind of moral equivalence—put forward by the president of the United States , no less .
As the Republican party holds its convention , the United States is facing serious challenges at home on many fronts , from its reckoning on racial justice and presidential attacks on the media , to concerted , years-long attacks on the independence of the Justice Department from political influence .
But these domestic shortcomings don ’ t call for retreat ; they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commitment to supporting democracy and human rights globally , while simultaneously addressing concerns that abound inside the United States today .
We must fulfill our responsibility to speak up when other governments commit serious human rights abuses , engage in massive corruption , or undermine the rule of law and democratic processes , at least to signal our commitment to free and fair government at home as well as abroad .
There is no moral equivalence between developments in the United States and those in Belarus—or in any other country with an authoritarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ albeit one where our institutions that support the rule of law are challenged by a president who too often views himself as above the law .
We should fight domestically to reassert the rule of law so that we can be in a stronger position to do so internationally , and fight for the rule of law internationally so that we don ’ t weaken the community of free democracies that buttresses our own .
Human rights activists , civil society figures , opposition leaders , and oppressed citizens around the world look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have for years , to speak truth to power in their countries .
Far be it from us to tell protesters in Belarus and other unfree countries that they came at the wrong time looking for inspiration and moral support in the United States .
The values and truths we espouse globally are equally true at home .
We tell other leaders that they should not use power to enrich themselves .
We should repeat this guidance as strenuously as ever , while we seek to spotlight how our president may have violated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enabling his family ’ s profiteering from their political offices .
We stress the importance of separation of powers and of checks and balances to fledgling democracies around the world .
As we give this advice , we should heed our own wisdom , despite the fact that our Senate wilts in the face of alleged impropriety by the current administration .
The behavior , rhetoric , and actions of the current administration are cause for great concern about the future of America ’ s democracy .
They also complicate American efforts to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least the ones in Beijing , Minsk , Manila , Riyadh , and Moscow , among other places .
We must continue to speak out when we see egregious abuses in other nations , but we should also recognize that not pushing back when necessary on American transgressions will lend more credence to whataboutism—and with increasing justification .
This week , the Republican party and President Trump are outlining their vision for the next four years .
Americans have the opportunity to judge whether the current president and his party are capable of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abroad .
“ Freedom , ” President Reagan was fond of saying , “ is never more than one generation away from extinction .
” We must seek to challenge any threat to democratic values and institutions at home and abroad .
Retreat on either front is not an option .

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca and David J. Kramer

On August 9, longtime Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko engaged in massive fraud to steal re-election for a sixth presidential term. (His previous “victories,” except for his first in 1994, were hardly more honest.) The day after the election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a reasonably strong statement, calling the election “not free and fair” and appropriately condemning the use of violence against protesters and journalists (though the United States since has gone largely silent). But in Belarus and around the world, some may wonder what moral ground the United States has to criticize others, given President Trump’s refusal to acknowledge that he would accept the results of the U.S. presidential election in November should he not be declared the winner.
The apparent degradation of American democracy might lead some toward disengagement in democracy promotion and moral international leadership. This would be a twofold mistake. By ignoring our role as the foremost champion of democracy around the world, we would give comfort and support to foreign despots.
Given the use of federal forces, including Park Police and Secret Service, on June 1 to clear Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., of peaceful protesters and the deployment of federal security agents without identification and in unmarked cars to Portland, Oregon, the similarities between the United States under President Trump and Belarus under Lukashenko are discomforting.
Of course, America is still a special country and, for now, vastly more fair and just than Belarus. In Portland, some protesters reported being detained without apparent cause. In Belarus, protesters—and even those not protesting—are detained without cause as a matter of course, and are often beaten and tortured in police custody. In Portland and Washington, federal law enforcement used unnecessary and shocking violence against peaceful protesters. In Belarus, police used live ammunition against what they described as a “group of aggressive citizens with metal rods in their hands.” Lukashenko has threatened to use the Belarusian army against protesters. Trump’s efforts to involve the military in domestic policing have met with resistance from the Pentagon.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
But the non-violent aspects of authoritarianism are much more similar. Trump’s effort to suppress voter turnout, including through various obstacles to mail-in voting, has parallels with Lukashenko’s efforts to steal the election in Belarus. Trump’s persistent refusal to say he will accept the outcome of any election in which he isn’t the winner betrays a view of elections that Lukashenko would appreciate.
Under normal circumstances, governments across Europe and the free world—not to mention the brave Belarusians on the streets—would look to Washington to lead the response, both public and private, to such an offense to democracy. And Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun, a very decent man, is in Europe this week to address the situation. But an old familiar form of whataboutism is returning: Who are the Americans to criticize others, given what’s happening inside its own borders?
At the height of the Cold War and the civil rights movement, the Soviets would parry any accusation of human rights abuses by invoking the horrors and indignities of Jim Crow and the deep injustice of segregation, as if that excused the Gulag. Now, Lukashenko can point to Lafayette Square and Portland and respond, “Tu quoque. ”
Of course, the task is not any easier when Trump praises authoritarian leaders, such as when he “fell in love” with North Korea’s Kim or called Egypt’s el-Sisi his “favorite dictator.” Trump’s own whataboutism doesn’t help either. When asked about the murders of Russian journalists in 2017, for example, he replied, “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” This was one of many opportunities when Trump declined to criticize Putin, as well as the worst kind of moral equivalence—put forward by the president of the United States, no less.
As the Republican party holds its convention, the United States is facing serious challenges at home on many fronts, from its reckoning on racial justice and presidential attacks on the media, to concerted, years-long attacks on the independence of the Justice Department from political influence.
But these domestic shortcomings don’t call for retreat; they challenge all Americans to continue our decades-long commitment to supporting democracy and human rights globally, while simultaneously addressing concerns that abound inside the United States today. We must fulfill our responsibility to speak up when other governments commit serious human rights abuses, engage in massive corruption, or undermine the rule of law and democratic processes, at least to signal our commitment to free and fair government at home as well as abroad.
There is no moral equivalence between developments in the United States and those in Belarus—or in any other country with an authoritarian regime. We remain a democracy, albeit one where our institutions that support the rule of law are challenged by a president who too often views himself as above the law. We should fight domestically to reassert the rule of law so that we can be in a stronger position to do so internationally, and fight for the rule of law internationally so that we don’t weaken the community of free democracies that buttresses our own.
Human rights activists, civil society figures, opposition leaders, and oppressed citizens around the world look to the United States, as they have for years, to speak truth to power in their countries. Far be it from us to tell protesters in Belarus and other unfree countries that they came at the wrong time looking for inspiration and moral support in the United States.
The values and truths we espouse globally are equally true at home. We tell other leaders that they should not use power to enrich themselves. We should repeat this guidance as strenuously as ever, while we seek to spotlight how our president may have violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, enabling his family’s profiteering from their political offices.
We stress the importance of separation of powers and of checks and balances to fledgling democracies around the world. As we give this advice, we should heed our own wisdom, despite the fact that our Senate wilts in the face of alleged impropriety by the current administration.
The behavior, rhetoric, and actions of the current administration are cause for great concern about the future of America’s democracy. They also complicate American efforts to hold other governments to account, not least the ones in Beijing, Minsk, Manila, Riyadh, and Moscow, among other places. We must continue to speak out when we see egregious abuses in other nations, but we should also recognize that not pushing back when necessary on American transgressions will lend more credence to whataboutism—and with increasing justification.
This week, the Republican party and President Trump are outlining their vision for the next four years. Americans have the opportunity to judge whether the current president and his party are capable of defending freedom and self-government at home and abroad. “Freedom,” President Reagan was fond of saying, “is never more than one generation away from extinction. ”
We must seek to challenge any threat to democratic values and institutions at home and abroad. Retreat on either front is not an option.


thebulwark--2020-08-26--Democracy without Integrity Is Impossible

[ Editor ’ s note : The following were delivered as remarks to the Convention on Founding Principles . ]
It ’ s an honor to add my voice to others who are affirming the importance of principles in American life .
My task is to address the indispensability of honor , integrity , and service in elected officials .
Whenever you talk about honor or integrity , you run smack into the cynics .
They scoff at you .
“ Grow up , ” they say .
“ Politics ain ’ t beanbag .
Everybody does it.
” Or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , there are only two kinds of people in the world— “ killers ” and “ losers.
” On another occasion , after praising Vladimir Putin and being reminded that Putin kills people , Trump said , “ What , you think we ’ re so innocent ?
We kill a lot of people too.
” The cynics are wrong—at least they are wrong about America .
We ’ ve committed our share of sins and errors , but we are not like Russia , not remotely .
And our sense is honor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Without integrity in public office , trust is impossible .
And without trust , the experiment in self-government can not survive .
Let me tell you a story .
A child named Alexander was born in Ukraine in 1975 when it was still part of the Soviet Union .
His mother died when he and his twin brother were 3-years-old .
His father was lucky and managed to emigrate to the United States .
Alexander was raised to revere the country that gave him freedom .
Here are his words : Alexander was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Heart .
Later he would rise through the ranks to become an area expert on Ukraine serving on the National Security Council .
And it was while there , working for President Trump , that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman saw wrongdoing .
The president was attempting to extort the leader of Ukraine .
He was withholding necessary military aid—aid that had already been approved by Congress and signed by the president .
Trump was withholding it until Ukraine ’ s leader agreed to announce a bogus corruption investigation into the president ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vindman have done ?
Well , a cynic would say , “ Who are you kidding ?
Everybody does it .
You ’ re in the big leagues now .
Keep your head down and shut up.
” And that ’ s what most people did .
That ’ s what nearly all people in the Republican party did over the course of the past three years when faced with other examples of corruption , demagoguery , and deceit .
They kept their heads down , they mumbled excuses , they said they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or they scurried in the other direction when they saw reporters approaching .
But it ’ s not what Alexander Vindman did .
He had been raised to be honorable .
He had been trained by the United States Army to report any malfeasance to his superiors .
He had been taught to respect not just rank or power but standards and principles .
Here are his words : General John Kelly , former four-star general , former chief of staff to President Trump , saw Vindman ’ s testimony and the abuse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave.
” Yes , our military instills the virtues of honorable service .
At the very end of his testimony , Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman spoke directly to his immigrant father , who had clearly worried about the courageous step his son had taken in publicly contradicting the president of the United States .
Here are his words : But , sadly , he wasn ’ t .
The president fired him from his position on the National Security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he fired his twin brother as well .
But that wasn ’ t all .
The administration held up Vindman ’ s promotion to full colonel .
In July of 2020 , Alexander Vindman , citing bullying and intimidation , retired from the military he loved .
Now , if you think , as I do , that Alexander Vindman represents the very definition of a patriot , then you will also agree that integrity is integral to the American ideals we uphold .
Loyalty to tribe or land characterizes all people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of course , but we have something more .
We have a devotion to the principles and ideals of the Founding and the Constitution .
We expect each American , and particularly each public official , to be loyal not to a person or a race or an ethnic group , but to the nation .
When we swear an oath , it is not to a party , it ’ s to the Constitution of the United States .
Now I ’ d like to tell you another story .
In 2000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in American history .
George W. Bush and Al Gore were separated by just a little over 500 votes in the state of Florida to decide the election .
The post-election legal wrangling , which dragged on for a month , was intense , and tempers were extremely frayed .
Though it embarrasses me to reflect on it now , at the time , I was a passionate , extremely partisan Republican .
I despised Al Gore and thought his victory would represent a grave evil for the nation .
I followed every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the legal maneuvers with manic intensity—never for one second considering the possibility that the Democrat actually could have won .
I interpreted every Democratic move as a sign of bad faith .
Finally , on December 12 , just six days before the Electoral College would meet to decide the election , the Supreme Court issued its ruling : Florida ’ s recount violated the Constitution ’ s equal protection clause .
George W. Bush would be the next president .
I was thrilled and deeply relieved .
But I was a bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among Democrats .
Would they feel cheated ?
Would they accept it ?
Would there be violence ?
What happened next has stayed with me ever since .
Al Gore immediately accepted the decision .
He instructed his staff that no one was to criticize the Supreme Court , and then he delivered the most elevating concession speech in recent American history .
Here are his words : I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside , and may God bless his stewardship of this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this long and difficult road .
Certainly , neither of us wanted it to happen .
Yet it came , and now it has ended , resolved , as it must be resolved , through the honored institutions of our democracy .
Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken .
Let there be no doubt , while I strongly disagree with the Court ’ s decision , I accept it .
.
.
.And tonight , for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs , there is a higher duty than the one we owe to a political party .
This is America and we put country before party ; we will stand together behind our new president .
Gore ’ s speech was a revelation to me .
It helped me to see how much partisanship had warped my perceptions .
Gore had different policy priorities , but he believed in the same principles I did .
He was loyal to the rule of law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s what matters most .
President Trump , and those who view the world as he does , probably think of Al Gore as a pathetic loser .
Well , he did lose an election , but he gained an honored place in history by his graciousness .
Besides , it isn ’ t losing that ’ s pathetic—it ’ s being unable to accept a fair loss that ’ s pathetic .
It could have gone very differently .
If Gore had been a different kind of man , he might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of his personal disappointment , he could have issued baseless charges of partisan influence or even of corrupt payoffs .
He could have undermined people ’ s faith in our institutions in many ways .
And considering the raw state of the country ’ s nerves at the time , he could have done real harm .
Instead , he chose to reaffirm faith in institutions , and to put his own feelings aside in the name of national unity .
In short , he acted as a real leader .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in which people are motivated only by self-interest or group interests .
It ’ s possible to convince people that everyone cheats and that the only way to survive in this world is to do unto others before they can do unto you .
But that country wouldn ’ t be America .
America is a nation of laws .
It ’ s a nation of rights-bearing individuals who place loyalty to the Constitution above personal or party advantage .
It ’ s a nation that demands integrity because only when those in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elections accept the results without fear .
Let me say that in a different way .
If every election is a contest of unscrupulous liars and cheats who seek advantage only for themselves and their own teams , then democracy can not survive .
Without some sense of integrity , without some minimal standards of decency and fair play among office holders , those who lose will have no faith in their government , and thus no reason to abide by the results of elections .
So , the stakes are very high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a boutique taste for an elite few .
It ’ s the bedrock of our democracy .
We can tolerate a few miscreants and villains .
What we can never do , without losing our country , is accept that corruption and venality are normal .
Jefferson said , “ we hold these truths to be self-evident.
” We , his successors , must say “ We hold these principles to be inviolable—and among these are honor , integrity , and the rule of law .
”

[Editor’s note: The following were delivered as remarks to the Convention on Founding Principles.]
It’s an honor to add my voice to others who are affirming the importance of principles in American life.
My task is to address the indispensability of honor, integrity, and service in elected officials.
Whenever you talk about honor or integrity, you run smack into the cynics. They scoff at you. “Grow up,” they say. “Politics ain’t beanbag. Everybody does it.” Or, as our president likes to say, there are only two kinds of people in the world—“killers” and “losers.” On another occasion, after praising Vladimir Putin and being reminded that Putin kills people, Trump said, “What, you think we’re so innocent? We kill a lot of people too.”
The cynics are wrong—at least they are wrong about America. We’ve committed our share of sins and errors, but we are not like Russia, not remotely. And our sense is honor is one of our greatest strengths. Without integrity in public office, trust is impossible. And without trust, the experiment in self-government cannot survive.
Let me tell you a story. A child named Alexander was born in Ukraine in 1975 when it was still part of the Soviet Union. His mother died when he and his twin brother were 3-years-old. His father was lucky and managed to emigrate to the United States. Alexander was raised to revere the country that gave him freedom. Here are his words:
When my father was 47 years old, he left behind his entire life and the only home he had ever known to start over in the United States so that his three sons could have better, safer lives. His courageous decision inspired a deep sense of gratitude in my brothers and myself and instilled in us a sense of duty and service. All three of us have served or are currently serving in the military.
Alexander was wounded in Iraq and received the Purple Heart. Later he would rise through the ranks to become an area expert on Ukraine serving on the National Security Council. And it was while there, working for President Trump, that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman saw wrongdoing.
The president was attempting to extort the leader of Ukraine. He was withholding necessary military aid—aid that had already been approved by Congress and signed by the president. Trump was withholding it until Ukraine’s leader agreed to announce a bogus corruption investigation into the president’s chief domestic political rival.
What should Vindman have done?
Well, a cynic would say, “Who are you kidding? Everybody does it. You’re in the big leagues now. Keep your head down and shut up.” And that’s what most people did. That’s what nearly all people in the Republican party did over the course of the past three years when faced with other examples of corruption, demagoguery, and deceit. They kept their heads down, they mumbled excuses, they said they hadn’t read the tweets, or they scurried in the other direction when they saw reporters approaching.
But it’s not what Alexander Vindman did. He had been raised to be honorable. He had been trained by the United States Army to report any malfeasance to his superiors. He had been taught to respect not just rank or power but standards and principles. Here are his words:
The uniform I wear today is that of the United States Army. The members of our all- volunteer force are made up of a patchwork of people from all ethnicities, religions, and socio-economic backgrounds who come together under a common oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. We do not serve any particular political party, we serve the nation.
General John Kelly, former four-star general, former chief of staff to President Trump, saw Vindman’s testimony and the abuse he was subjected to and said this: “He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave.” Yes, our military instills the virtues of honorable service.
At the very end of his testimony, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman spoke directly to his immigrant father, who had clearly worried about the courageous step his son had taken in publicly contradicting the president of the United States. Here are his words:
Dad, my sitting here today, in the U.S. Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.
But, sadly, he wasn’t. The president fired him from his position on the National Security Council, and in a petty swipe, he fired his twin brother as well. But that wasn’t all. The administration held up Vindman’s promotion to full colonel. In July of 2020, Alexander Vindman, citing bullying and intimidation, retired from the military he loved.
Now, if you think, as I do, that Alexander Vindman represents the very definition of a patriot, then you will also agree that integrity is integral to the American ideals we uphold.
Loyalty to tribe or land characterizes all people everywhere. We Americans have that, of course, but we have something more. We have a devotion to the principles and ideals of the Founding and the Constitution. We expect each American, and particularly each public official, to be loyal not to a person or a race or an ethnic group, but to the nation. When we swear an oath, it is not to a party, it’s to the Constitution of the United States.
Now I’d like to tell you another story.
In 2000, we had the closest presidential election in American history. George W. Bush and Al Gore were separated by just a little over 500 votes in the state of Florida to decide the election. The post-election legal wrangling, which dragged on for a month, was intense, and tempers were extremely frayed.
Though it embarrasses me to reflect on it now, at the time, I was a passionate, extremely partisan Republican. I despised Al Gore and thought his victory would represent a grave evil for the nation. I followed every twist and turn of the recount and the legal maneuvers with manic intensity—never for one second considering the possibility that the Democrat actually could have won. I interpreted every Democratic move as a sign of bad faith.
Finally, on December 12, just six days before the Electoral College would meet to decide the election, the Supreme Court issued its ruling: Florida’s recount violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause. George W. Bush would be the next president. I was thrilled and deeply relieved. But I was a bit worried about what the effect might be among Democrats. Would they feel cheated? Would they accept it? Would there be violence?
What happened next has stayed with me ever since.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Al Gore immediately accepted the decision. He instructed his staff that no one was to criticize the Supreme Court, and then he delivered the most elevating concession speech in recent American history. Here are his words:
I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country. Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road. Certainly, neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came, and now it has ended, resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy. Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the Court’s decision, I accept it. . . .And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession. . . . While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than the one we owe to a political party. This is America and we put country before party; we will stand together behind our new president.
Gore’s speech was a revelation to me. It helped me to see how much partisanship had warped my perceptions. Gore had different policy priorities, but he believed in the same principles I did. He was loyal to the rule of law and to the Constitution. And that’s what matters most.
President Trump, and those who view the world as he does, probably think of Al Gore as a pathetic loser. Well, he did lose an election, but he gained an honored place in history by his graciousness. Besides, it isn’t losing that’s pathetic—it’s being unable to accept a fair loss that’s pathetic.
It could have gone very differently. If Gore had been a different kind of man, he might have condemned the Supreme Court. Because of his personal disappointment, he could have issued baseless charges of partisan influence or even of corrupt payoffs. He could have undermined people’s faith in our institutions in many ways. And considering the raw state of the country’s nerves at the time, he could have done real harm. Instead, he chose to reaffirm faith in institutions, and to put his own feelings aside in the name of national unity. In short, he acted as a real leader.
It’s certainly possible to have a country in which people are motivated only by self-interest or group interests. It’s possible to convince people that everyone cheats and that the only way to survive in this world is to do unto others before they can do unto you.
But that country wouldn’t be America. America is a nation of laws. It’s a nation of rights-bearing individuals who place loyalty to the Constitution above personal or party advantage. It’s a nation that demands integrity because only when those in power behave honorably can those who lose elections accept the results without fear.
Let me say that in a different way. If every election is a contest of unscrupulous liars and cheats who seek advantage only for themselves and their own teams, then democracy cannot survive. Without some sense of integrity, without some minimal standards of decency and fair play among office holders, those who lose will have no faith in their government, and thus no reason to abide by the results of elections.
So, the stakes are very high. Upholding principles isn’t just a boutique taste for an elite few. It’s the bedrock of our democracy. We can tolerate a few miscreants and villains. What we can never do, without losing our country, is accept that corruption and venality are normal. Jefferson said, “we hold these truths to be self-evident.” We, his successors, must say “We hold these principles to be inviolable—and among these are honor, integrity, and the rule of law.”