Winter Solstice, Planets Align, and Advent

 

America needs you to take vaccine

 This post was printed in the Dec. 18 edition of the Wilson Times

There! We got that taken care of. The United States and the world have a tested an effective vaccine against the COVID-19 corona virus that has disrupted our lives, destroyed our plans, ruined our vacations, increased our anxiety and caused mental health problems. And killed more than 300,000 Americans in less than a year.

            The first vaccine shots were given to health-care workers Dec. 14. Vaccine shipments are to be distributed to health care facilities across the country, giving relief from worries and renewed confidence for millions.

            But … there might be a problem. In a recent survey, 40 percent of American respondents said they would not take the vaccine. This is important because the goal of this vaccine is to create “herd immunity,” in which so great a portion of the population is vaccinated that the virus has no place to go, no new victims to infect.

            Herd immunity is achieved by having a critical mass of 87 percent of the population vaccinated. If 87 percent of the population is not vaccinated, there will be no herd immunity. Large numbers of the population will still get sick and some will die from COVID-19.

            One person’s refusal to participate in the vaccination program will affect the whole population. Attending school, going to work, going to movies and concerts, as well as church services and political/governmental events will remain risky without herd immunity. Essentially, 40 percent of the population can hold hostage 60 percent of their friends, kin and neighbors. Without herd immunity, the virus might not go away.

            Some people don’t want the vaccination because they’re squeamish about needles and shots; my late brother, for example. Diagnosed with pre-diabetes, he told his doctor, “just don’t make me take shots; I’d rather die first.”

            This is understandable, though extreme. The pain of a vaccination is usually not severe, and severe side effects are rare. Even vaccine-phobic people should be able to endure a shot. But in recent years, a people around the world have decided vaccines are dangerous. Measles vaccines were blamed for autism, although medical professionals said that was false. Still, enough parents refused to vaccinate their children that measles outbreaks returned. Some Muslim extremists in Pakistan declared polio vaccines unacceptable and violently prevented health care workers from vaccinating people.

            Wild rumors about the COVID vaccine have already begun, making it more likely that herd immunity might falter. Americans have become distrustful of federal agencies that oversee vaccine safety and myriad other matters. Public reluctance about the new vaccines is just the latest example of public distrust of government.

            Americans should be overjoyed with the distribution of the COVID vaccines. Don’t let this chance for herd immunity to a disease that has already killed 300,000 Americans be squandered.

            Think of the “common good,” the notion that some things benefit everyone and should be accepted and supported by all.

            Get your COVID-19 vaccination for your own health, for families and neighbors, for nationwide herd immunity. Just get it.

An Electoral College education

This post was published in the Wilson Times Dec. 11, 2020 

Early in my career as a newspaper editor, commentator, columnist and opinion sharer, I defended the complicated, bewildering presidential election system known as the Electoral College. My thinking was, after all, it’s been around for more than 100 years and has produced mostly unchallenged elections and mostly competent chief executives.

But this year’s presidential election has gone into double or triple overtime, and election officials have been exhausted, accused and threatened. This has led to a reconsideration of the arcane procedures set forth in the Constitution to unravel a disputed election, as well as a new look at the efficacy of the Electoral College.

The Electoral College was conceived as a way of preventing unsophisticated, perhaps ignorant, rank-and-file voters from electing the wrong man (female candidates were unheard of in those days). The Electoral College would protect the republic from a terrible mistake brought about by crass emotions. Instead of basing the election on what ordinary voters decided, an elite group of knowledgeable men (no women) would consider the vote results but then cast the only votes that really mattered, the Electoral College’s vote.

Attention to the Electoral College has been spurred by three recent presidential contests that installed someone other than the winner of the popular vote. One of the claims favoring the Electoral College in debates decades ago was the idea that the Electoral College vote forced candidates to campaign in states they might otherwise ignore. The claim was that a nationwide popular vote would ensure that candidates would spend all their time and attention on the most populated states — California, New York, and Texas, for example.

But, as former Jim Hunt aide Gary Pearce pointed out in a recent column, the focus on “battleground states” that swing the Electoral College has had the same effect, limiting the attention given to certain closely competed states. North Carolina, a “battleground state,” was one of 17 states that held 212 presidential election campaign events in 2020, according to a tally by the National Popular Vote group cited by Pearce. The other 33 states were ignored by the candidates.

The Electoral College also skews the impact of the popular vote because each state gets two Electoral votes just for being a state, regardless of population. That constitutional provision, assigning an electoral vote for each senator and congressman, inflates the impact of less populated states.

Both parties have some interest in eliminating the popular vote: Democrats have lost presidential elections despite winning the popular vote; Republicans see the popular vote as an effort to undermine the political power of traditionally GOP states.

But the Electoral College is embedded in the Constitution, meaning two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of all state legislatures would have to approve the change. I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Supreme letdown, democracy prevails

    "The  Supreme Court really let us down" was Donald Trump's reaction to Friday's U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting an appeal led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, joined by 17 other states and 106 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, to invalidate the presidential election results in four "battleground" states. Twenty-two other states filed a brief challenging the premise of the lawsuit, asserting that Texas and its allies were attempting to disenfranchise voters in legally held elections in other states.

  The Supreme Court, including three of the nine members appointed by Trump himself, turned down the case, which Trump had declared was "the Big One," unlike the previous dozens of lawsuits challenging Joe Biden's election victory by a comfortable margin. Nearly all of the earlier lawsuits were dismissed by state and federal courts, often with harsh rebukes of the basic premise of the claims of election fraud, which were trumpeted without credible evidence.

    The unanimous dismissal of the "Big One" had to hurt Trump. After all, he nakedly expedited a Supreme Court appointment of a conservative Republican because he believed the Supreme Court would ultimately determine the winner of the presidential election. Only justices Alito and Thomas offered a concern, a conservative one — that the case should not have gone directly to the Supreme Court but should have been tried in lower courts. Neither justice objected to the dismissal of the case.

     It now appears likely that no future lawsuits will endanger Biden's claim to the Oval Office. Barring a military coup or armed insurrection by angry Trump loyalists, Biden will be inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021. The unnecessarily extended vote counting, appeals, recounts and partisan dismissal of legitimate voting results may finally be at an end.

    After the Supreme Court ruled, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut declared on the Senate floor that Republicans who supported the president's election lawsuits and his support for efforts to delay or deny the results of a fair and free election should be called out for their anti-democracy actions. "You cannot, at the same time, love America and hate democracy," he said, adding that Democrats should hold the anti-democratic traitors accountable for their attempt to overthrow a legally elected government.

    If the Democrats are smart enough to follow Murphy's recommendation (an iffy proposition), they will make the actions of those who have blindly followed Trump's authoritarian, president-for-life strategy the theme of the 2022 and 2024 elections. That strategy, wisely delivered, would decimate the Republican Party.