Wednesday, January 19, 2022
A4
OPINION
VOICE of the CHIEFTAIN
Time to
leave the
past where
it belongs
S
ometimes the past needs to be
left where it belongs — in the
past.
That includes with our elections.
Recently, Oregon Congressman
Cliff Bentz made a statement at a
meeting in La Grande that actually
refuted Donald Trump’s claim of
the 2020 presidential election being
stolen.
Instead, he inserted a different
word — bought.
Seriously, we need to move past
this as a nation and quit bringing up
these talking points.
There are plenty on the right who
decry the outcome of the 2020 elec-
tion who claim voter fraud, that Joe
Biden stole it, etc.
That was more than a year ago. Get
over it. To channel an often-tweeted
phrase by Donald Trump, it’s sad.
What’s also sad is those who look
back four years further and still hold
that the 2016 election that Trump
won was stolen away from Hillary
Clinton in an action of collusion with
the Russians.
Both of these are narratives from
the right and the left, respectively,
that need to be dropped. And now.
We are already severely divided
as a nation and have enough prob-
lems that deserve our attention. Con-
tinually rehashing claims of the past,
from more than a year ago and five
years ago, doesn’t do any good to
help heal our wounds. If anything, it
just stirs up even more bitterness.
Our politicians, our elected lead-
ers, are chosen to serve the public.
To help move us in the direction of
becoming the “more perfect union”
that the U.S. Constitution speaks of.
Continuing to beat the dead horses
of “The 2020 election was stolen!”
or “There was collusion in the 2016
election!” is a fruitless effort whoever
it comes from, whether a politician or
an Average Joe next door.
Frankly, it’s even exhausting.
Even if 2020 was proven to be sto-
len, or 2016 was proven to be rife
with collusion, there is nothing to
be done now to erase that. By bark-
ing those claims, all that is accom-
plished is that those on the opposite
side of the aisle roll their eyes and
become more firmly entrenched in
their beliefs — true or not.
And while this editorial happens to
be focusing on the election, one could
easily insert their favorite divisive
topic and make the discussion about
it.
Bitterness over many of these
topics is part of what is tearing at
the fabric of our already damaged
republic.
As we have written in this space
before, the only way forward is work-
ing together to find solutions for our
problems.
Let’s instead do that, and leave the
past in the past.
Kristof should be ready to serve in the long run
MAIN
STREET
Rich Wandschneider
ick Kristof for chief of staff ... or
something Oregon at some future
time.
Nicholas Kristof is a longtime New
York Times reporter and columnist and,
with his wife and writing partner, Sheryl
WuDunn, the author of several books,
including “Tightrope: Americans Reach-
ing for Hope.” The book was published
in 2020, right before the pandemic and
right before their daughter, Caroline,
graduated “virtually” from Harvard.
Nick — that was his name growing up
in Yamhill on a 100-acre farm that spe-
cialized in pie cherries — and the fam-
ily retreated to the farm. They had spent
summers there as the children grew and
Nicholas and Sheryl covered the democ-
racy movement in China and politi-
cal and economic upheaval across Asia.
The husband-and-wife team won a Pulit-
zer Prize for their reporting on Tianan-
men Square in 1989. Sheryl moved from
journalism to business, and Nicholas
from reporter to columnist after 9/11. He
won a Pulitzer for bringing the world’s
attention to genocide in Darfur in 2006.
Together again in 2009, they published
“Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into
Opportunity for Women Worldwide.”
He’s used his column to bring atten-
tion to human trafficking, poverty, and
injustice in this country and across the
world, exposing corruption and misdeeds
in government and business along the
way. He’s been called the “conscience of
American journalism.”
Back in Yamhill, where his mother
N
still lives on the family farm that was
always summer home for the children,
Caroline is the CEO of Kristof Farms,
now specializing in cider apples and
wine grapes. (The first batch of cider was
a hit; wine grapes are not yet mature.)
And Nick has announced as a candidate
for governor. The secretary of state says
that he does not meet the three-year con-
tinuous residency requirement; Kristof is
appealing.
What to make of it?
I doubt there is anyone in the entire
country who knows more about the
impacts of poverty, racism, sexism, phar-
maceutical greed, the building and hol-
lowing of the middle class — and the
positive impacts that timely and well-run
educational and rehabilitation programs
can have on individuals and communi-
ties — than Nick Kristof. In “Tightrope,”
Nick and Sheryl trace the lives of class-
mates that he grew up with in Yamhill.
They follow the school dropouts, loss
of high-paying union jobs, health prob-
lems and drug addictions of once-prom-
ising Yamhill students as they slide into
illness, family breakups, and poverty that
a previous, post-World War II generation
had seemingly left behind. They recite
interviews, attend funerals and give the
muddy details of old friends’ collapses
and deaths by drugs, illness and suicide.
They go to other places where rehab,
early education and vocational training
programs are changing lives. They look
at Portugal, which long ago moved the
drug problem from law enforcement to
health departments. They advocate for
universal health care and major prison
reform and criticize an economy and tax
structure gone wrong enough so that just
three Americans — Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates
and Warren Buffet — “now possess as
much wealth as the entire bottom half of
the population.”
The intimate stories of old friends and
classmates, and the worldwide search for
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answers to the challenges that stumped
and crippled those once upwardly mobile
families, represent an incredible amount
of research and a vast reservoir of human
connections and knowledge gained over
decades of reporting and engaging in the
world. He might make a great governor.
I doubt that he can get there — and
especially not now, with the controversy
about his residential status. Add to that
the knee-jerk rejection of anything New
York Times, and the fact that his immedi-
ate huge war chest came mostly from out
of state, and he will be fighting a steep
uphill battle.
But what if Tina Kotek, or whoever
gets the Democratic nomination — or
gets elected, for that matter — signs
Kristof on as chief of staff? The political
gossips couldn’t slam him with “carpet-
bagger,” couldn’t trip him up on knowl-
edge of what’s going on in Lake County,
and couldn’t complain about out-of-state
financing.
And if we need someone or new ideas
to run health care, prisons, human ser-
vices, or universities, Nick could turn to
his rolodex. If we need a grant to move
along a new program for recovering opi-
oid users, he’ll know who to call, and if
he needs to find an Oregonian who has
climbed out of one abyss or another, he
has them among old friends in Yamhill.
I’m reminded that Chris Dudley, a
Portland Trail Blazer who’d done good
community work and enjoyed popular-
ity with fans and a wider public, ran for
Oregon governor in 2010, losing to John
Kitzhaber by only 22,000 votes. Dud-
ley’s was a one-shot affair, and he’s since
moved to California.
I suggest Nick — and Caroline — dig
their heels in and be ready to serve Ore-
gon for the long run.
———
Rich Wandschneider is the director of
the Josephy Library of Western History
and Culture.
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