DECEMBER 14, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
Opinion
The days of the season
By LYNDON ZAITZ
There are now less than two weeks
until Christmas day. It is crunch time
for those who are whittling down
their shopping lists or fi nalizing hol-
iday decorations at their
homes.
Regardless of one’s
level of involvement
with the holiday it can
be a stressful time if
only because we are
all jostling for prime
parking spaces, driving
spaces and opting for
the check-out counter we think will
be quickest. We willingly make our-
selves crazy this time of year.
It is like driving in ice and snow:
we’re sure of our abilities but are du-
bious of other people. It is the atti-
tude of others in a store, in a parking
lot or driving of which we must be
mindful. There is a way to be less
stressed during the frantic days of
the season: think of others, plain and
simple. That means becoming toler-
ant of others, putting yourself in oth-
er’s shoes. Exhibit patience each day.
Sages and religious fi gures through
the centuries have expressed the view
that giving is better than receiving—
it’s good for the soul. Giving is not
limited to tangible things,
it can also include giving
of one’s self— a smile, time
well-spent with someone.
Giving of one’s self can also
mean sharing one’s gifts: if
one is a musician, compose
an original song or piece of
music. The joy of creating is
a gift we give to ourselves,
our creation is the gift we give away.
If one is a writer perhaps writing a
poem or short story specifi cally for
one person. That would be a one-of-
a-kind gift that could never be found
in a store or bought online.
Picture yourself in your comfort-
able chair creating a gift instead of
fi ghting crowds. There is still time to
create something personal and spe-
cial as a gift for some of those on
your list.
on
my
mind
(Lyndon Zaitz is publisher of the
Keizertimes.)
Who will speak for Trump?
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Who will speak for President Don-
ald Trump at his state funeral, far in
the future though it should be? That
must be what the 45th president was
thinking as he sat in the
front pew at the funer-
al for former President
George H.W. Bush last
week.
Bush was eulogized
by a man of words, a
foreign world leader, a
onetime ally in Congress
and his eldest son—Pu-
litzer
Prize-winning
historian and Bush biographer Jon
Meacham, former Canadian Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney, former Sen.
Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., and son and
former president George W. Bush.
Is there a scribe who will praise
Trump for his leadership and his rhet-
oric?
Here’s a hint. In January, Tony
Schwartz, who co-wrote, “Trump:
The Art of the Deal,” wrote in The
Guardian that the 45th president is
“signifi cantly angrier today: more
reactive, deceitful, distracted, vindic-
tive, impulsive and, above all, self-ab-
sorbed” than when Schwartz worked
on the 1987 book.
A world leader? Well, Trump has
developed warm relations with tyrants
like Russian President Vladimir Putin,
North Korean chairman Kim Jong
Un and Saudi Crown Prince Moham-
med bin Salman, so there are some
strongmen who might want to speak
for Trump. But after Trump’s taunts to
NATO, it is hard to imagine the lead-
er of a long-term ally who will look
back fondly on Trump’s tenure.
Is there a political colleague who
would say, as Simpson said of Bush,
that the late president was a true friend,
who stood by him in tough times, and
whom “you would’ve wanted on your
side”?
Consider the fate of former At-
torney General Jeff Sessions, whom
Trump fi red after the midterm elec-
tions. Trump never forgave Sessions,
the fi rst senator to endorse Trump in
the 2016 primary, for recusing him-
self from the Russian probe. Sessions
learned the hard way that loyalty is a
one-way street in Trump world.
So scratch public fi gures with sol-
id reputations. At best, Trump proba-
bly could rely on praise mainly from
political hit men, who hitched a ride
with the only Republican who would
let them near 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
At least Trump can count on one
of his sons to speak highly of him.
Donald Jr. and Eric clearly
are attached to their father.
Ditto daughters Ivanka and
Tiffany. (We’ll leave Barron
out of this discussion, as he
is a minor.) But it is hard
to imagine any of Trump’s
children extolling his kind-
nesses to strangers, even po-
litical foes.
The Bush family showed
kindness toward Trump who had rid-
iculed “low energy” Jeb Bush during
the 2016 GOP primary, trashed Dub-
ya for the Iraq war and even mocked
Bush 41’s signature “thousand points
of light,” telling a rally this summer
that he prefers “Make America Great
Again.”
This kindness was much more
powerful than the snub of Trump and
pointed barbs directed at him at the
memorial service for Sen. John Mc-
Cain in September. The McCain clan
let it be known Trump was not wel-
come at the National Cathedral ser-
vice. McCain’s eulogizers used the oc-
casion to disparage Trump—without
naming him—as a small soul dwarfed
by the legendary Vietnam POW.
When it was over, both sides were
further entrenched in their contempt
for the other, and no one looked the
better for it.
The National Cathedral send-off
for the elder Bush showed Trump
what can be—as the Bushes offered
Trump a place in the community of
presidents.
Bill and Hillary Clinton might
greet him with cold stares, but like the
Bushes, Barack and Michelle Obama
understand the value of civility.
Bush 41 famously befriended Bill
Clinton, the Democrat who defeated
him in 1992. In the traditional letter
to his successor, the vanquished Bush
told Clinton, “Your success is now our
country’s success. I am rooting hard
for you. Good luck.” Bush put the
country before his ego.
Yes. I know, the hard-core Trump
base loves the fact that Trump is a
fi ghter, not a gracious loser. But there
are plenty of Republicans who miss
the days whean something as human
as a funeral was above politics.
guest
column
(Creators Syndicate)
Is democracy being abandoned?
By E.J. DIONNE JR.
Especially after last week’s court
fi lings in the ongoing investigations
of President Trump, his critics have
good reason to focus on the threats
he poses to democracy and the rule
of law. But the president is not alone
in his party.
In case after case, Re-
publicans have demon-
strated an eagerness to
undercut democracy and
tilt the rules of the game
if doing so serves their
ideological
interests.
The quiet coup by the
GOP-controlled Legisla-
ture in Wisconsin is designed to defy
the voters’ wishes. It refl ects an aban-
donment of the disciplines self-gov-
ernment requires.
In November, Wisconsin’s elector-
ate ended eight years of Republican
dominance in state government by
choosing Democrats Tony Evers as
governor and Josh Kaul as attorney
general. Democrats also won races for
secretary of state and state treasurer.
There was nothing unnatural
about this. Voters often tire of one
party and decide to try the other side.
It’s the beautiful thing about constitu-
tional democracies: There are no fi nal
victories, so there are no fi nal defeats.
We all agree to rules that apply uni-
formly whether those we favor win
or lose because this protects our right
to fi ght another day and perhaps pre-
vail the next time.
Not so the Republicans in Wis-
consin. Having lost the governorship,
they’re using a lame-duck session of
the legislature to strip Evers of many
powers they were perfectly content to
see Republican Gov. Scott Walker ex-
ercise. Why are they doing this now?
Because Walker, who was defeated
by Evers, is still in offi ce to sign their
bills.
Among other things, the legisla-
tion would stop Evers from taking
control of a state economic devel-
opment agency that the Democrat
has pledged to abolish, and it would
make it harder for him to overturn
restrictions Walker imposed on so-
cial benefi ts. It would also limit early
voting (which helped the Democrats
win by expanding turnout). For good
measure, the legislature
wants to prevent Kaul from
withdrawing the state from
a lawsuit against the Afford-
able Care Act—even though
that’s exactly what Kaul told
voters he would do.
It won’t surprise you to
learn that Republicans are
shifting power to the state legisla-
ture because radically gerrymandered
district boundaries helped the GOP
maintain their majorities in the state
Senate and Assembly despite the
Democrats’ performance at the top of
the ticket.
In rationalizing their move, Rob-
in Vos, the Republican speaker of the
Wisconsin State Assembly, and Scott
Fitzgerald, the Senate majority lead-
er, had the nerve to issue a statement
declaring: “The legislature is the most
representative branch in government.”
Well, no. The Democrats won the
popular vote in State Assembly con-
tests by a 54 percent to 46 percent
margin, but emerged with only 36
seats to the GOP’s 63.
Evers, denouncing the “hot mess”
the legislature had created, said Sun-
day on NBC’s Meet the Press that he
had urged Walker to veto the bills and
might go to court to block them.
Republican indifference to dem-
ocratic norms is not confi ned to
Wisconsin. Republicans in Michigan
(which also replaced a Republican
governor with a Democrat this year)
are working on a similar effort.
One Michigan GOP target: in-
coming Democratic secretary of state
Jocelyn Benson, who, like other Dem-
ocratic secretaries of state this year,
other
voices
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Border wall would join history’s walls
President Trump demands, “The
Wall absolutely must be built!” To
him, apparently, it matters not that
America’s bridges, roads and infra-
structure throughout the land have
reached conditions of dangerous dete-
rioration. Transportation
improvements, No! Just
fund that keep-’em-out
Wall!
Our trains wobble-in-
their-tracks, about-to-fall
on their backs, now pro-
viding threat of injury
and death to more of us
every day. Yet, so many
American people want a 30-foot-high
wall bordering Mexico. And one with
Canada, too, we guess. For them, they
don’t see a secure, safe American fu-
ture with “enemy” citizens having free
access to America on north and south
borders (only the Russians are okay).
What the White House wants
will cost at least $5 billion. How-
ever, to those who trust no elected
government save the one headed by
Trump, we’d just “blow” that amount
on infrastructure repairs and func-
tioning highways by making all trav-
el and transportation throughout the
U.S. a safe and sane experience. In-
stead, they want more white-knuckle,
nerve-wracking, uncertain-we’ll-ev-
er-get-there-alive for the U.S. traveler.
Last week the U.S. Congress ap-
proved a two-year stopgap spending
bill to avert a government shutdown,
setting a potential showdown later this
month, over Trump’s proposed border
wall. Meanwhile, many in Congress
argue that such a wall would be in-
effective at keeping out illegal immi-
grants and illicit drugs. They want to
continue a defense against the unap-
proved by improving less-costly fenc-
ing and use of high-tech instruments
that detect illegal border crossings and
thereby seek to include in
the federal budget $1.6
billion for additional bor-
der security in their fund-
ing bill compromise.
Walls from human
history’s past are well
known, including the
Great Wall of China built
before Christ while a
century plus into Anno Domini the
Romans established the Antonine and
Hadrian’s walls in what became Great
Britain. The most notorious wall in
gene
h.
mcintyre
Keizertimes
was elected on an ambitious reform
agenda. This includes greater trans-
parency when it comes to political
money. Republicans don’t like this. So
they introduced a bill to restrict her
oversight of campaign fi nance issues.
Both states are borrowing from a
playbook by North Carolina Repub-
licans who moved to hamper Demo-
cratic Gov. Roy Cooper soon after he
was elected in 2016. And as Michael
Hobbes reported in The Huffi ngton
Post, GOP legislators are also trying to
dilute progressive referendum victo-
ries in states such as Florida and Utah.
And, no, this is not about “polar-
ization” in general. When Republi-
cans won governorships in Massa-
chusetts and Maryland in 2014 and
Vermont in 2016, Democratic leg-
islatures made no power-grabs like
those Republicans are undertaking.
Democrats chose to battle them in
traditional ways—and to work with
them, too.
The GOP’s anti-democratic im-
pulse has far more in common with
the old segregationist Democrats of
the South than with the best Re-
publican traditions that led to the
rights-conferring 14th and 15th
Amendments to the Constitution.
The party’s efforts to lock in power
regardless of election outcomes also
eerily echo some of the behaviors of
anti-democratic politicians abroad.
At least a few anti-Trump Repub-
licans are facing up to how extensive-
ly their party is undermining democ-
racy’s golden rules. “I’m old enough
to remember when it wasn’t a key
part of Republican strategy to try,
in effect, to nullify election results,”
Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol
tweeted last week.
But most in the party are either
complicit or silent. Is it any wonder,
then, that most Republicans are also
willing to go right along with Trump?
the modern age was the Berlin Wall
(1961-1992).
Trump’s wall, if built, will be a
noxious negative barrier as most walls
have been, representing denial and loss
of opportunity. It will predictably be
remembered as anti-humanistic, po-
litically-inspired and mean-intended
not unlike The Donald himself. Nev-
ertheless, all foreboding aside, it con-
founds he who views the subject that
virtually every living American today
owes his freedoms and rights here to
those original-founders not writing
walls into the U.S. Constitution: Walls
that would have prevented most of
our family predecessors from gaining
entry to the United States of America.
(Gene H. McIntyre shares his opin-
ion frequently in the Keizertimes.)