A Christmas Season like none before

 

This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 27, 2020

 

            This is the strangest holiday season of our lives. Thanksgiving had to be celebrated without the dining room full of family and friends. Rules imposed by a deadly pandemic limited our gatherings and our opportunities for travel. There were no group shots of all the family and guests gathered at the table or on the porch.

            The Centers for Disease Control has strongly urged people to stay home for the holidays, and some states have created obstacles to interstate travel, such as quarantine of people arriving from another where the pandemic roars. Air travel is down sharply. Who would want to confine themselves in a metal tube for an hour or more with dozens of strangers, not knowing whether they are infected?

            Christmas shopping in 2020 will be unrecognizable compared to previous years. Many people will limit their gift shopping to online only rather than search through malls and stores for that special gift. “Black Friday” sales still exist, but without large crowds jostling before displays and checkout counters. Masks are required, and social distancing makes the crowds less hazardous.

            Even Christmas’ religious roots will be challenged by this pandemic year. Churches that are usually packed for Christmas Eve services will be less crowded this year, if they are still offering in-person services at all. The pandemic has devastated churches as civil authorities imposed restrictions on crowd size. In a year when congregational singing is forbidden because of singers’ likelihood to spread the Coronavirus, will we forgo beloved Christmas carols? Will anyone “go a-caroling”?

            Many households, including mine, are curtailing Christmas decorating. The Evening Optimist Christmas tree lot, where I picked out and bought a tree year after year, is in business again but on a diminished scale. The Optimists are less optimistic about sales; they ordered fewer trees this year.

            In a year of dark pessimism, some people are fighting back with light. Daylight-Saving Time has just ended, and the earlier darkness hangs over us like a dust storm. Lights in windows, on trees, on porches, on tables, in front yards, in stores are an antidote to the bleak sadness of a holiday season lacking in brightness and joy.

            This Sunday, Nov. 29, is the first Sunday of Advent, a too-often overlooked season of the church year. It celebrates the birth of the Christ Child and offers a time of calm reflection before the excitement and stresses of Christmas Day.

            This year, Christmas gatherings will follow Thanksgiving’s pattern — canceled or greatly limited.

            Churches will celebrate the sense of anticipation during Advent, awaiting arrival of the Messiah. Advent wreaths and Advent calendars give children and adults a means of counting the days until the wait is over.

            We veterans of a pandemic that killed a quarter-million Americans will be waiting, too, waiting for the holiday seasons of 2021, by which time vaccines and therapies should have Covid-19 banished or under control, and we can gather again, sing again and feel joy again.

Senate in the spotlight, with its odd history

 

This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 24, 2020

 

            The climactic runoff in Georgia for two U.S. Senate seats will likely determine partisan control of the Senate. If two Democrats win, that party will, with the vice president’s vote as Senate chair, give the Democratic Party control of that chamber. If a Republican wins one of the two seats, that party will maintain control of the Senate’s agenda.

            It might be time for a refresher course on U.S. Senate history and, perhaps, a reconsideration of the Senate’s structure. The 1789 U.S. Constitution’s Article II states: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof … .”

            That is how the Senate was structured for 124 years, until the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913. The new amendment changed how senators were elected, stating: “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof.” This amendment was born out of the “Populist Movement,” aimed at making individual voters the center of political power.

            Originally, the Senate essentially represented the states, which were considered sovereign and nearly equal to the federal government. The balance of power James Madison and others developed gave half of Congress to the states and half to the people.

            The Seventeenth Amendment changed that balance of power, but the slice of power reserved for the states was consumed by the popular vote. State legislatures were left without representation in Washington. Most people, especially the Populists, thought that was as it should be, foreshadowing the 1960s slogan of “All power to the people.”

            In the 21^st century, some progressive politicians saw a major flaw in the selection of senators. They see the Senate as an amplifier of power of less populated states, each of whom is rewarded two U.S. senators, regardless of the state’s population. California, the most populace state, has no more clout in the Senate than Montana or Rhode Island. That seems to conflict with the Supreme Court’s 1964 ruling that congressional districts (reflecting voter population) must be roughly equal to comply with Fourteenth Amendment’s “equal protection” clause.

            Some conservatives, such as the late James J. Kilpatrick, argued that the Seventeenth Amendment was an unwarranted change to the constitutional structure because it took away state sovereignty and elected two legislative bodies from the same electorate. Liberals dislike the Senate for a different reason: it amplifies the clout of less-populated (and more conservative) states.

            The Senate’s selection structure, critics say, is unfair to the most populated states, with millions of unequally represented voters. That Senate is able to stop legislation from the more democratic-structured House of Representatives. Because the Electoral College is allocated from the number of members of Congress plus the two senators every state gets. In this century, several presidents have won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College (the only count that counts).

Both sides can agree that something’s amiss, but as long as national politics remains sharply divided, the chances of reform are near zero.

Trump's selfish fight threatens democracy

This post was written for the Nov. 13 print edition of the Wilson Times.

 

           The Trump administration’s four years have given America numerous new precedents — things no other president or administration officials had ever done. With the announcement a week ago that Democrat Joe Biden has won the election, both in the determining Electoral College tally and in the popular vote, Trump appears to be putting his name in American history in another way.

            For the first time in history, an outgoing president might prevent a peaceful transfer of power to the newly elected president. President John Adams set the precedent in 1800 when he conceded the election to Thomas Jefferson, his political opposite and long-time rival. Every president since then, for all 220 years, has accepted “the will of the people” and stepped down to make room for the new president. The peaceful transfer of power is considered the fundamental test of a working democracy. Will we still have one?

            Trump has refused to concede the election, which was “called” when it became mathematically impossible for the trailing candidate to catch Biden, who already had more than the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. Instead, Trump has persisted in proclaiming the election was “rigged,” “unfair,” “crooked,” “horror stories,” and so on. He has claimed that the election was stolen by Democrats who counted fake ballots or threw away ballots for Trump. He claimed the vote counting, which went on for five days after the Nov. 3 election day, was a fraud.

            But ballot counting has always gone on after an election. Trump hurt his own cause by telling his followers they shouldn’t vote by mail, which he claimed was fraudulent. He continues to criticize the counting of ballots, although this year’s counting was probably the most transparent in history. Philadelphia, for instance, placed the non-partisan counters in a glass-front room, where passers-by could watch the process, and closed-circuit TV links allowed citizens to watch the count from home.

            State laws, which govern elections, require that observers from both parties observe the casting of ballots and the counting of those ballots. The president’s myriad lawsuits over the counting have been tossed out, except for one in which the Supreme Court decided ballot observers could move closer to the counters — from ten feet to six feet — and the counting resumed.

            The only confirmed false ballots incident involved a pair of Virginia men, Trump supporters linked to QAnon, CNN and other news outlets reported. The men were arrested after arriving in Philadelphia with loaded guns and a truck full of counterfeit ballots.

Trump will retain presidential powers until noon on Jan. 20. This gives him time to take revenge on his perceived enemies. He has already fired the director of USAID, a career diplomat and manager, and his defense secretary. He has also threatened to fire Anthony Fauci, the career epidemiologist who earned Trump’s ire by contradicting his erroneous statements at COVID news conferences. This ten-week interregnum will allow Trump a second chance to settle scores and clean house. Don’t think he won’t use it. He may also pardon more of his loyal friends and maybe even himself.

            It appears that, despite all of Trump’s bluster, the election vote will be certified, and Biden will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. If Trump mellows (is that possible?), he might not go down in history as the only president to be physically removed after losing an election. Some members of his own party have warned him that he doesn’t want that to be his place in history.

 

A holiday season spoiled by the pandemic

 This post was published in the Wilson Times Nov. 6, 2020

The coming “holiday season” will be like none we’ve ever experienced before. Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2019 came and went before a Coronavirus became part of our vocabulary. Thanksgiving and Christmas this year will be remembered as the pandemic holidays, the times when getting the family together will be much more difficult than ever before.

It’s always a challenge to get a far-flung family together each year, but most of the time, we find a way. One year might find our children and grandchildren at our house; other years one of the younger generation volunteers to host the gathering. Sometimes additional family members are included — parents-in-law, brother- or sister-in-law, nieces or nephews. New significant others of these relatives can also be added, or neighbors without relatives close enough to share a holiday together.

But the Coronavirus this year will disrupt our Thanksgiving and Christmas traditions, just as it has disrupted so many other aspects of our lives. Those who have to board an airplane to get to the family Thanksgiving location might be reluctant to board a sealed capsule with dozens of strangers whose medical conditions, health and personal responsibility are not known. News media will announce the crowded conditions at airports and the number of flights that are in the air. Did I say “crowded”? That’s not a good adjective in a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans.

Those who can gather with family members without taking a plane or a train are not home free. The traditional Thanksgiving dinner (think of the Norman Rockwell painting) will be more difficult than ever to pull off this year. Government guidelines recommend face masks and social distancing with a limit of no more than 25 people in one indoor space. For many families, 25 is not nearly enough. The descendants of my parents (who died in 2006), that is, their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren, now total around 40 people from babies in arms to my brother and me, both in our 70s.

For about 30 years (no one is sure exactly when we started, but it was about 1990), the family had met in Charleston, S.C., for a meal together. We won’t be doing it this year. The Coronavirus has put an end to that tradition, at least temporarily.

Family members worry about being infected despite the precautions everyone is taking. They worry about staying in a hotel room (who slept here last? Did they have any symptoms?) and eating in a restaurant (close contact with servers and the sanitation standards in the kitchen are worrisome, even in the best restaurants).

America’s restaurant habits might not survive the pandemic. For most of my life, we have celebrated birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, and most happy moments with a restaurant meal. But the Coronavirus has many Americans worried about potential infections from eating in a restaurant with dozens of other people in the same room.

If this pandemic lingers, where will we go to celebrate joyful events in our lives?