A Principled Conservative Party

A common thread through many op-ed columnists that I read these days is the need for the rise of some kind of "principled conservative" political party. It's really more difficult to dig down beyond the label to find out what that means. There are catch phrases thrown around like "fiscal conservatism" and "limited government." These sound harmless enough, but in practice (at least in my adult lifetime) they have been empty promises (or threats, depending on one's perspective). And using the word "principled" seems to suggest a rejection of more than a half-century of the Southern strategy, where the conservatives embraced the Southern segregationists.

Yet those of us who grew up in the Jim Crow south (schools in Union County, SC were segregated until my 9th-grade year), understand that without the segregationists and their ideological descendants, the current Republican Party as we know it would go the way of the 19th-century Whigs and Know-Nothings. If the GOP decided to reject the Southern strategy and confess much as Lee Atwater did on his deathbed, what appeal would "principled conservatism" have? More importantly, what would be the major policy planks in a "principled conservative" party platform?

Well, some might start with fiscal conservatism as a significant plank. That one is pretty easy to rip up, as for all their talk of fiscal conservatism, in practice the GOP has run up huge deficits in the cause of tax cuts for the wealthy, and using the plank as a bludgeon against the economic safety net.

Advancing free market capitalism might be a plank. But taxpayer-funded giveaways to profitable corporations doesn't fit into any textbook definition of capitalism, at least without the modifier "crony" attached. At it's worst, such crony capitalism turns into oligarchy, or in the extreme, fascism.

Law and order might be a plank. But law and order without aggressive protection of the people's 4th amendment right coupled with the equal protection of the laws descends into the kind of police state that the most vile tyrant would applaud.

Limited government might be a plank. But, like with law and order, those were planks of the segregationists, who used them as baseball bats (sometimes literally) against those who marched to advance their 4th amendment and equal protection rights. In the segregated South, that was a dog-whistle, saying, "Don't let the big bad government make my little Susie go to school with those people."

So I would like the details filled in. What would a principled conservative party look like? To whom would it appeal? Who are some current prominent politicians that would represent this principled conservative party? 

Inquiring minds want to know!

Swearing Off Trump

 I posted on Facebook over the weekend that I am done with Trump - no more comments, no more rants, no more railing against his manifold sins and wickedness. Instead, I'm looking forward to January 20, 2021. On that day I believe we will see reborn the promise of America, as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take their oaths of office. What can we look forward to?

• Restoration of American influence on the world stage. The election results have brought a collective sigh of relief to our traditional allies in Western Europe, signaling a renewed vigor in the NATO alliance. As a result, we are likely to see the Iran nuclear deal restored, putting the brakes on Iran's ambitions in a multi-national effort that President Obama crafted. Recommitting the United States to the Paris Agreement could spur the United States into world leadership in the 21st-century global energy transition. 
• Renewed vigor in environmental policy. President-elect Biden outlined an assertive environmental and energy policy during the campaign, signaling restoration of the Clean Power Plan, breathing new life into the Environmental Protection Agency, and building on nearly a half century of the triumvirate of environmental legislation: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.
• Sensible, comprehensive immigration reform. Early in his term, President-elect Biden will reverse harmful executive orders put in place by Donald Trump. Then he will push Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform along the lines of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. That bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support, but was blocked in the House by then-Speaker John Boehner. 
• Restore and improve the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If preclearance was unfair because it didn't apply to all states, then revise the law to require the Justice Department to clear every state election law change before they take effect. Establish Federal standards for election technology, absentee ballot handling, early voting, and other critical matters for Federal elections.
• Respect for the separation of powers and our norms and traditions. With deep experience in both the Legislative and Executive branches, Biden is steeped in institutional history. He knows how to make the deals that need to be made to improve the lives of the American people. 

Most of all, I'm looking forward to a President who does not seek to be the center of attention all day, every day.

It Is What It Is

 Of all the things Donald Trump has said and done as President, this really sums up his attitude toward his job and the American people he was elected to serve. And he's done and said a lot of troubling things:

- "Good people on both sides" at Charlottesville, after a white supremacist plowed his car into a group of peaceful protesters, killing one;

- Calling for boycotts of great American companies like Harley-Davidson and, this week, Goodyear;

- Quietly acquiescing to the Russian government putting bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan;

- Openly claiming that if he loses the 2020 election, it will be because it was "rigged";

- Telling the Gold Star widow of a US soldier killed in Niger that "he knew what he signed up for."

Many of you can add to that list, no doubt.

But "It Is What It Is" signals unconditional surrender. The declaratory statement says that we don't know what to do, we don't care to seriously investigate what to do, and even if we knew what to do, it's not worth the effort to try it. It tells the families of the 170,000-plus who have died from COVID-19 over the past 7 months that they simply are the victims of a fate for which we can do nothing. It is worse than a simple failure of leadership. It is the complete and utter absence of any capacity for empathy, which is prerequisite to being a leader.

We have had corrupt Presidents in our history. We have had inept Presidents in our history. We have had clueless, in over their heads Presidents in our history. We have had Presidents whose policies and agenda I vehemently opposed. But we have never, at least in my lifetime, had a President so completely devoid of concern for the well-being of the American people, or some basic acknowledgement of the nation's founding principles and governing documents.

It is what it is. But it doesn't have to be that way. We The People have the opportunity to demand better from our leaders on November 3. Vote like the future of the Republic depends on it, because it does. Vote like our lives depend on it, because they do. 

The Month of Despair

Here are some notable August headlines from my memory 

• August 7, 1964, LBJ signed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution
• August 9, 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of Watergate
• August 2, 1990, the Iraqi Army invaded Kuwait, triggering the first Gulf War
• August 3, 2019, 31 people killed and 51 people wounded in separate shootings, one at a bar in Dayton, OH, and another at a WalMart in El Paso, TX

And the headlines so far this month (from the New York Times)?

• August 1, Trump's Attacks on Mail Service Sow Voting Fears
• August 2, Brief Reprieve, Then the Virus Charges Back
• August 3, Scientists Fret as White House Rushes Vaccine
• August 4, Lessons from Hasty School Reopenings
• August 5, Blasts Rock Beirut, Killing Dozens and Wounding Thousands
• August 6, US Examines Nuclear Goals of the Saudis
• August 7, The Unique US Failure to Control the Virus
• August 8, Russia Continues Interfering in Election to Try to Help Trump, US Intelligence Says
• August 9, Without $600 Weekly Benefit, Unemployed Face Bleak Choices
• August 10, Trump's Orders on Coronavirus Relief Create Confusion

Americans became somewhat serious about COVID-19 in mid-March, when the NBA, closely followed by other professional sports, shut down its season. I say somewhat serious, because even then there were those who denied the danger posed by the virus, led by the Denier-in-Chief. Five months and 160,000 dead Americans later, and there are those who still refuse to take the pandemic seriously. 

By now, every one of us knows someone who has fallen victim to COVID-19. Even with that personal loss, too many apparently believe that it was "their time," that "God's will" controls, that "he or she was old, anyway." The disease won't affect me, because I'm in my prime and healthy and invincible. 

So let's not worry about school kids, because "they don't get sick." And the teachers I guess are easily replaceable, interchangeable cogs in the machine that parents too often see as babysitting so mom and dad can go to work.

Let's not concern ourselves with the waitress or the barista or the personal trainer or the retail store clerk or the supermarket shelf stocker. After all, their job is to take care of me, and I might humble myself so much as to get through a meal without complaining about something, and might be so generous as to leave a bit of spare change as a tip. And if that restaurant has to close, well it's their fault to not have a "real job" with benefits and paid time off, so why should the rest of us do anything to take care of these freeloaders? If they can't pay rent, let them live on the streets.

And on top of that despair, we see Trump ramping up his attacks on the very heart of our constitutional Democratic Republic. He'll slow down the mail to create chaos for the November elections. He'll ignore science in favor of magic potions and wishful thinking. He'll seek help from anyone, including our foreign enemies, to help him win an election. And he'll ignore the separation of powers, trying to grab the headlines with his unconstitutional and ill-conceived orders. 

All while Americans die from the coronavirus at the rate of 1,000 per day.

An Economic Cliff

Last week, Dr. Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column that Americans are facing another economic cliff. This cliff comes not on August 1, when extended unemployment benefits from the CARES act expire, but rather this Friday, when states will cut off that extended unemployment benefit for millions who are collecting unemployment.This comes on top of more and more businesses closing again after states reopened prematurely. Even last week, there were more than a million new unemployment claims, and that will grow in the next few weeks. 

Republicans in the Senate are completely oblivious to the plight of working-class Americans, as they consider another round of disaster relief spending. They want a huge payroll tax cut - threatening the health not only of Americans, but of Social Security and Medicare. And that doesn't help unemployed Americans who - wait for it - are not getting a payroll check. They want to limit the liability of companies who open their doors, forcing employees to work, but not holding companies accountable when those employees contract COVID-19. And, of course, they want more tax cuts for the wealthy.

More importantly, they are resisting more funding for schools, while demanding as a bumper sticker slogan that schools reopen. Again, they simply ignore the facts and recommendations of experts in education, epidemiology, and building systems design and operation. Many on the right actually threaten to withhold Federal money to states/school districts that don't reopen schools fully, while cash-strapped states, who cannot run deficits, are trying to deal with a myriad of public services that the people need in the middle of a pandemic.

So get ready for the cliff.

Privilege in America

We are seeing today the evidence of privilege in the United States of America in two different, but related stories in the news. 

In one, the Attorney General of Kentucky, a Republican, is seeking to charge some 87 protesters who were trespassing on his private yard. Yes, with trespassing, a misdemeanor. But also with a Kentucky felony, "intimidating a participant in a legal process." The protests were over the Attorney General's slow roll of the investigation into the death in February of Breonna Taylor at the hands of Louisville police.

The second case involves the wealthy St. Louis couple who pointed weapons at protesters on the street in front of their house. In that case, the St. Louis District Attorney, acting within her prosecutorial discretion, is seeking felony charges of brandishing a weapon in public. The Governor has called for the DA to resign, and Trump, along with US Attorney General William Barr, are looking at ways they can intervene in the case.

Threatening and intimidating public officials in the conduct of their duties happens every day all across America, in the demands and threats around campaign contributions. Businesses are looted every day by "private equity" that buys up companies using tons of borrowed money, strips the companies bare - including any employee pension funds - and then sells the remains at a huge profit. Big companies and wealthy people avoid taxes every day, with all sorts of schemes to hide money (see the Netflix movie "Laundromat"). Businesses and the wealthy have their minor violations overlooked all the time.

But if you're poor - white or black or brown or whatever - you get charged with a felony "threatening and intimidating." You get arrested and put in jail for a long time for breaking a window in a business, or blinded in one eye by a beanbag round from a 2nd story window as you're complying with police commands to disperse. You get choked to death for selling loosey cigarettes on a city street or passing a counterfeit $20. You get pulled over for not signaling a lane change in a deserted town on a sleepy Sunday morning, and then put in jail with cash bond for "resisting."

The determination isn't always race or ethnicity, but it's always money.

Reopening Schools in the Middle of a Pandemic

On July 7, President Trump reiterated his call to open public schools this fall. “We want to reopen the schools,” Trump said. “We don’t want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons. They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep schools closed. No way.” Apparently he believes that children aren't susceptible to the virus, that they can't carry the virus back into their homes and communities, and that even if they are susceptible, they don't get as sick as the elderly who are frequently after-school caregivers. 

The reality is that COVID-19 is a highly contagious airborne pathogen, and that groups of people in enclosed spaces create a perfect petri dish in which the virus can thrive and spread quickly. Experts in building systems design recognize the contribution of HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems to the spread of airborne diseases. Over decades, they have developed standards for design and operation of such systems in hospitals, where infection control matters. Such systems in operating suites, critical care units, and isolation rooms are designed, installed, and operated under very exacting regulations in order to keep patients and hospital staff safe and healthy. Even in the rest of the hospital, systems use 100% outside air, meaning that no air is recirculated in the building.

Schools, on the other hand, are not designed with the spread of highly virulent airborne pathogens like COVID-19 in mind. There are minimum ventilation standards, and in recent years the concept of ventilation effectiveness has taken hold. That basically means some percentage of the air coming through the air handling system is outside air, and that room air distribution (the registers in the ceiling) are designed and positioned to better mix the air from the air handling system in the room. But the systems don't have the capacity typically to operate with 100% outside air, which is expensive. Besides, only schools built in the last 20 or 30 years are designed with these considerations in mind, and we know that most schools are older than that in most areas of the country.

That said, there are ways to improve ventilation, and thereby improve the indoor environment where students, faculty, and staff spend their days. ASHRAE- the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers - issued a Position Paper in April with recommendations for building systems operation in a pandemic. Those recommendations include installing high-efficiency particle filtration (HEPA filters), a 2-hour outside air flush of the building every morning before opening the building to its occupants, and increased outside air throughout the occupied period.

Yet implementation of these recommendations will not come without a cost:

- Many air handling systems are not sized to accommodate the thicker HEPA filters, meaning modification to filter housings

- Some air handler motors/fans might not be able to operate properly with the increased static pressure introduced by the HEPA filters, meaning replacing motors or fans

- Increasing the outside air to the building means increased costs to heat or cool that ventilation air (called tempering in the business)

- All this also increases personnel costs to monitor and manage the ventilation systems operation

I realize this is pretty dense for the lay person. But these highly technical considerations are essential, in my view, to reduce the risks to our children, their teachers and administrators and custodians and cafeteria workers, all those families, and the community at large. The only question is whether we have the willingness to pay.