^ the President-elect of a nation facing a very dark future as an heroic era of our history ends in self-inflicted failure

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Yesterday, voters in the nation we have called “America” chose “presidential electors,” a majority of whom will vote to make Donald J. Trump the next holder of the office of President, as designated under Article 2 of the Constitution.

It is customary on the day after an election for the loser to congratulate the winner.

Thus I congratulate the man now entitled to receive a clear majority of electoral votes pursuant to the Constitution’s Amendment 12.

His opponent, Hillary Clinton, did win a clear plurality of actual voters’ votes. But our Constitution does not empower direct democracy. We live the electoral college. Our ancestors ratified the Constitution — albeit very narrowly in almost every one of the 13 original states — and we cannot now complain of Ratification’s consequences.

Congratulations thus given, and citing my bases for according them, let me now look at what has happened. This will be a rather long read; please bear with me.

1.The South has risen again. Trump’s base was most of the South. His voice was that of the South. His hatreds and precepts were born in the South, and in states founded by Southerners.

The Trump story begins a long time ago : the election of 1836, which brought to power a man very similar : Andrew Jackson, a major slaveholder from Tennessee, was a gut fighter, an uncouth womanizer, a manner-less frontiersman who hated the urbane lite and marshaled the votes of gun-toting frontier guys to overwhelm said elites. Jackson proceeded to destroy his enemies’ power  abolishing the first national bank and causing the nation’s most serious depression prior to that of 1929-1934. Jackson uprooted entire nations of Indians, stealing their land, exiling them to what is now Oklahoma, while his followers grabbed the Indians’ ancestral land for speculation and settlement.

Jackson’s coalition of Southern  slaveholders, Mississippi Valley backwoodsmen, Appalachian land grabbers, and riverboat watermen (and their riverside suppliers) dominated national politics right up to the Civil War,. And though overwhelmed, and driven from power,  by the consequences of secession, Civil War, and armies of the North and Northern Midwest that won it, they and their children rose again after Reconstruction to terrorize people of color, bamboozle poor white workers and farmers, and block every measure of reform presented to Congress well into the 1960s.

Jackson’s coalition was racist and violent then, their descendants are racist and violent now, and they command majorities of voters in all the Jacksonian states. And if their current champion is a New Yorker — the opposite of Southern —  Jackson had plenty of support from New York cotton men and slave traders who hated the national bank’s control of their schemes and scams. His Vice President (Martin van Buren) was a New York machine pol. Sound familiar ?

It may seem odd for me to refer to events of 130 to 180 years ago to put Trump in perspective, but the stability of America’s voting system — of universal suffrage — assures that the surfaces may change but the fundamentals do not. We are politically the same polity were were in 1836. In the four year run up to Jackson’s election, his allies in Congress blocked President John Quincy Adams — the very sectional winner of a vicious 1832 election — from accomplishing anything at. all. We know this drill, don’t we ?

2.The South had help from crucial allies. Hillary Clinton would have won easily, South or no South opposed, had her opponent not received crucial help from two allies.

The first ally was Russia. It’s not the first time a foreign power has interfered with our politics.

In the Revolution and since, our polity in times of crisis has seen its destiny directed by foreign powers. France helped us secure victory in the Revolution; Britain staying out of the Civil War — despite enormous pressure on its government by Southern-sympathetic cotton importers — helped us to beat the slave power. Having England as staging area for the D Day invasion enabled us to win the Normandy battle; and Russia on the Eastern front assured us of victory in the entire European war. England as a base also helped us to win the First Iraq War.

Now comes Russia, to do what Britain declined to do in the Civil War : take the side of the South and its candidate.

We allowed it to happen. Few protested. The media hardly mentioned it. Their fixation was Hillary Clinton’s  e mails. More on this later.

Vladmiir Putin means us no good. He actively supports secession movements in various states — recently he hosted a secessionists’ convention in Moscow — seeking the breakup of our nation if possible. That may be a stretch; but his interference in the election itself, via hacking of e mail accounts and sponsorship of WikiLeaks, his espionage vanguard, unleashed much private gossip that our media — seeking advantage and profit, in true tabloid fashion — publicized hungrily. The message of said publication was to bolster the Trump campaign narrative of “cro0oked Hillary.”

Putin’s intelligence officers fed information constantly to the Trump campaign, bankrolled its second campaign chief, Paul Manafort, and gained in return Trump’s consistent approbation — a scandal for anyone who remembers the cold war, in which Russia’s predecessor state was our mortal enemy.

Russia is still our enemy. But the vitriol of most Trump supporters against our own government of “elites” is such that Trump’s embrace of Putin became a kind of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

If Putin helped Trump to win the election, fine and dandy, in the dark hearts of Trump zealots.

The second ally crucial to Trump’s election was the NY office of the FBI. Determined to indict Hillary Clinton for her use of that private e mail sever as Secretary of State — a practice used by both her immediate predecessors — or, if not indict, then smear, agents in that FBI office succeeded in pressuring Director Jim Comey to release the now infamous letter of investigation a mere eleven days before the election. At the time, Hillary Clinton was coasting to easy election; Comey’s letter, coming when early voting had already begun, cost her a good two to four points and all momentum. When finally, nine days alter, he wrote that the new investigation had nothing, the damage was done : because those days of early voting cost Clinton votes and because even with renewed momentum, doubts were sown, with a crucial two or three percent of voters, as to what next scandal Clinton might have in her resume.

Exit polls suggest that the votes the Comey letter cost Clinton came from suburban, white, college educated women : her core group. On election day, despite having one million volunteers (!!) out knock doors — an extraordinary ground game — Clinton was playing catch up. The IBD/TIPP poll, always accurate, showed it. The final IBD/TIPP poll had Clinton down 1 point.

One percent was not the whole story — Clinton actually won the popular vote — but it was the difference in those states that she had to win did not : Florida,  Wisconsin (half a percent), Pennsylvania (0.4 percent). As of this writing, she is behind also in Michigan, by 0.2 percent. Had she gained one percent more votes, she would have won all four and the Presidency.

Some have blamed Black voters for not turning out in huge numbers. True enough; in some states, Black voting numbers lagged noticeably. Ohio and North Carolina especially : but Clinton could have won without these. In Pennsylvania and Michigan, Black vote turnout was just as large as it was for Obama.

Some are faulting Clinton for rejecting her husband Bill Clinton’s plea to pitch her campaign more to white working class voters : her base in the 2008 campaign. But it’s rarely smart to campaign to the opponent’s base, and in this election white working class voters were Trump’s base. She chose instead to concentrate on HER base : voters of color, young people, women. The results support her decision. Clinton did not lose because she aroused the wrong voters. She lost because a key group of her own voters succumbed twice : first, to the Comey letter’s suggestion that Clinton’s e mails — as substance free a scandal as any I have seen — were, in fact, illegal; and second, to the constant talk about stuff dumped into the media’s lap by WikiLeaks.

If anything, the WikiLeaks gossip — all of it private correspondence stolen from people — was even less material than the e mails business. But the damage it did to Clinton’s vote reminds us that, where scandal is concerned, the more trivial the narrative, the more damaging : because petty stuff, people can understand, where truly major stuff overwhelms the mind.

Clinton was nickeled and dimed to political death.

That is how it is done, and to her it was done masterfully by her Russian enemies.

How,then, did Donald Trump manage to assemble the Southern, Jacksonian coalition ? How did a New York City tycoon who hobnobs with the big celebrities become a backwoodsmen’s hero ? Very simple : he dumped on everybody and everything, including his rich friends’ lifestyles. “Corrupt,” he called it and them, and his devotees believed him, because HE Knew. HE HAD LIVED IT.

And so when he insulted everybody and everything– when he called Mexicans rapists and John McCain a coward — when he mocked a disabled reporter and attcked a Muslim Gold Star mother –0  when he decried a Federal Judge for being “Mexican” — when he said he was smart for not paying taxes — when he openly praised Putin — when he spent a week slamming a beauty queen he had mocked: when he said he’d refuse to accept the election if he lost: when he said all this, his supporters loved him all the more, because they too hate all of these. Revenge and blood is what they want, and in Trump they had a leader willing to say so.

Until Trump came along and said all the things they had been told were uncool to say, things that if they said, would get them ostracized by right thinking society. And Trump ! Big time celebrity, famous, and rich as six Croesuses ! We all know that a celebrity can do no wro9ng; so, to hear Trump the celebrity talk like a jerk, well, that was all that was needed. Jerks are cool now ! Jerks were once in the social penalty box  but here was Trump telling them they could get back on the ice and skate again, skate in the spotlight !

Trump gave his supporters fame, power, approval. Is it any wonder that they flocked to him ? Then came the condemnations from “the elites,”: the “city people. This was gasoline poured on a fire ! The more angrily our city elites condemned Trump’s mobs, the more devoted to him they became.

That is why it didn’t matter one whit that Trump has no policy papers, that he seems to know nothing about anything, that he gropes women, that he doesn’t pay taxes, that he hobnobs with Russian spies, that he treats Hillary Clinton as if she were his cleaning lady.  None of it mattered to his voters because the one thing that did matter is that he was their enabler, their get out of social jail free card.

But if it is easy to enter into the mindset of Trump supporters, it is equally easy to view the consequences. Support for Trump is like burning one’s bridges. Good bye to social norms ? Good bye, social acceptance. Good bye to the society itself.

After all, if you dive into a bath of insult, a pool of bile, a river of slime, you can’t expect to emerge nicey nicey. Voting for Trump was a crap dump, nothing more. It was a pie thrown at. someone’s face, a flame of blame, tricycle hydroxide with no steering bottles.

Voting for Trump existed in the moment only; no tomorrow, no what’s next. After all, for his supporters, their vote doesn’t count, because the powers never listen anyway, so why should one vote judiciously ? Just throw the pie.

What DOES come next ? his voters don’t know and neither does he. He ad libbed much of his campaign — went into the debates with evidently zero preparation, winged it for as long as he could — and he will probably ad lib his presidency, assuming he gives a damn. I think he will disappoint his believers. They want change ? OK, WHAT change ? They talk as if they want it all destroyed, even the Constitution (except the Second Amendment), but I’m thinking that once they see the specifics they’ll say “WHOA, NO !” or else they’ll just tell Trump to bur it all down. Either way, the outcome can’t be good.

I have been tempted, these past many hours since the result was clear, that Trump will act on his vile bullying : that he will unleash his mob of gun toters, his anti Semites, his racists and immigrant haters, his followers who want to lynch jou7rnalists and apply the “2 A” to Hillary Clinton; and that would, of course, mean Nazism in America. But perhaps that is not what he will do. Perhaps he has no idea what he will do or who he will do it with. I can just as easily see Trump giving us bumbling incompetence as vicious violence, maybe more likely even. And what of the upcoming trials he faces ? Trump University and the rape trial ? Trump may find his time — and his political capital, such as it is — taken up with these matters.

I hope for incompetence. The nation can survive that. It cannot survive his fascist streak. It cannot survive his campaign chairman’s anti Semitism, his own anti-Muslim loudmouthing, his anti-immigrant scapegoating.

His limitless ignorance, it may end up turning the nation’s business over to the Republican Congress, whose goal is to repeal every social progress measure we have enacted since the 1950s, maybe since the 1850s. Of poor people and those of color; of LGBT people and immigrants, the Republican Congress cares not a whit. If said people exist at all for the Republican Congress, it is to fear them — to want them gone or powerless. Voting rights ? Not for them, they only vote Democrat.

I see nothing good in an incompetent Trump, nor anything good in a fascist Trump. And what of Supreme Court nominations ? The bad exhaust of a Trump jalopy will infect the nation for 150 years, maybe longer; we still live with the bad consequences of Andrew Jackson. Trump’s vote confirms the Jackson movement’s continuation probably into the future of America as long as the nation exists. It cannot be good for anyone, not even for those who vote for it. Maybe even especially for them.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

^ center, next to Governor Baker, stands Susannah Whipps Lee, perhaps our favorite legislative endorsee.

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We haven’t followed local contests as closely as we should have because the national election has been so controversial and existential. That said, we do have recommendations for our readers to think about. So here goes :

Massachusetts Legislature :   We think it important for Governor Baker to have control of the state’s Republican party, including a solid contingent of pro-Baker legislators. As the small Massachusetts GOP plays a vital role in state political reform, by way of providing us with referee-style GOP Governors, all of us have a vital interest in seeing our GOP led by bipartisan-minded activists.

To that end, we endorse the following GOP legislators who are not running unopposed :

Jim Kelcourse of Amesbury-Newburyport.

Sheila Harrington of Groton-Pepperrell-Dunstable

Shawn Dooley of Norfolk-Wrentham-Plainville

Susannah Whipps Lee of Athol-Orange-Petersham-Phillipston-New Salem

Donald Wong of Saugus-Wakefield

Steve Howitt of the 4th Bristol District

Kate Campanale of Leicester and Worcester’s Wards 6, 8, and 10 (partial).

Jim Lyons of North Andover-Tweksbury

Two State Senators are on our list :

Richard Ross of the Norfolk, Bristol & Middlesex District. Ross voted YES on the “TransBill,” the only GOP State Senator to do so. That’s all you need to know. He must be re-elected.

Patrick O’Connor of the Norfolk & Plymouth District. O’Connor was elected to fill out an unexpired term and now seeks a full term. A rare union-friendly Republican, O’Connor is one of our state’s up and coming generation of “Rockefeller Republicans,” a revival much needed if we are to have a useful GOP going forward after Trump.

NOTE : the first four of our House endorsees voted YES on the “TransBill” that enacted full civil rights into law for transgender people. We consider Kelcourse, Harrington, Dooley, and Whipps Lee heroes (along with five other GOP House members who voted YES).

Of our other endorsees, it may surprise some to see Jim Lyons on the list, as he is a die hard opponent of the “TransBill.” Our support is based on two factors : first, Lyons is as dedicated a local issues legislator as any. Second, he never uses hate or demonization to advocate his views, a welcome attribute quite untypical of his side’s usual manner.

We also endorse some Democrats facing contests for legislative seats. Here is our list :

Michael Day of Stoneham and Winchester (incumbent) : his opponent has discredited herself thoroughly by approving one of the vilest, most inflammatory hate mailings this observer has ever seen. Day was endorsed by Bill Weld in 2014 when he first sought the seat vacated by now State senator Jason Lewis. day MUST be re-elected.

Ken Gordon of Bedford-Burlington (incumbent) : has been victimized by the same despicable mailing that was thrown at Michael Day.. He faces a GOP opponent and must be re-elected if only as a protest against inflammatory hate mailings.

Jack Lewis of Framingham and Ashland : this is an open seat occasioned by Tom Sannicandro deciding not to seek another term. Lewis’s Republican opponent has, according to our sources, run a lazy campaign. We dislike lazy campaigns. Politics is an intense profession and must be addressed intensely.

Joan Meschino of Hull : this too is an open seat occasioned by Garrett Bradley’s resignation. The 3rd Plymouth District also includes Hingham and Cohasset, and it should elect a Republican. Unfortunately the Republican who should have won it lost his primary by a few votes; the winner is a Trump enthusiast who, when I interviewed her, refused to commit to defending the “TransBill” against a repeal referendum that will be on the 2018 ballot.

Evandro Carvalho of the 5th Suffolk District (incumbent) : Carvalho faces opposition from a perennial candidate who did in fact once represent the district. We like his opponent, an early transgender politician, for her courage and visibility : but Carvalho has a much more masterful grasp of today’s other issues and is also Chairman of the Boston legislative delegation — an honor his mastery of the issues fully merits.

For State Senator : Jamie Eldridge of the Middlesex & Worcester District (incumbent) : Eldridge can be a pain in the ass, as he leans his progressivism heavily upon those he thinks are his opponents (even when they aren’t), but he faces two opponents, one of whom is “alt right” and despicably proud of it. That candidate must be shown the door loudly and clearly. We urge a vote for Eldridge.

There is one other contest that merits discussion, the open State Senate seat representing the Cape and Islands. Both candidates — Republican Anthony Schiavi of Harwich and Democrat Julian Cyr of Truro — have much to appreciate: Cyr for his social activism, Schiavi for his 30 years of service in the Air Force, where he reached the rank of General. Schiavi certainly has the gravitas and the respect from others that one applauds in a candidate, and increasing GOP numbers in the present 34 to 6 State Senate is much to be desired. Our concern, however, is with the TransBill. We want any open seat candidate, of either party, to support it, as does Governor Baker. On Schiavi’s website, however, we cannot f ind the matter mentioned, not even one word. Considering that the Cape and Islands communities include some of our state’s most significant LGBT towns, it is imperative that the District’s Senator be stalwart in support of full LGBT rights. Cyr supports them passionately.

We’d like to see Schiavi win; but until we know that he supports full LGBT civil rights, we withhold endorsing him.

Sheriff : Only one race has attracted our attention, that in Essex County. We personally know the Republican candidate, Anne Manning-Martin and — disclosure — actively support her. The Democratic candidate, Kevin Coppinger, enjoys strong support from his fellow Democrats, as does manning-martin from fellow Republicans. Both she and Coppinger have excellent qualifications to do the Sheriff job — Coppinger was Lynn’s police chief, Manning-Martin a Department of Corrections executive for her entire career. But manning-Martin also serves as  a Peabody City Councillor — former school committee member — and so has working knowledge of municipal finances as well as the impact upon communities of those who are released from House of Correction custody. She embraces criminal justice reform fully, an advanced position in today’s GOP. If only for that reason, as well as her wide knowledge of corrections issues, she is the better choice. We are proud to endorse her.

—- The Editors / Here and Sphere

^ Director Comey of the FBI : does not look happy, nor should he

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Someone who uses twitter a lot today tweeted the following : “this election will be the first time that the KKK, the KGB, and the FBI all favored the same candidate.”

That’s a bit much — the entire FBI does not have a candidate — but it’s not as far off the mark a sit should be. The New York office of the FBI has clearly injected itself into the election, in clear violation of the Hatch Act, leaking confidential information and goading sympathetic cable TV media to suggest that the candidate this FBI office opposes is under serious investigation.

Before I continue, it might be smart forb me to quote relevant portions of said Hatch Act :

“(a) Subject to the provisions of subsection (b), an employee may take an active part in political management or in political campaigns, except an employee may not—

^ Mrs. Clinton : we enthusiastically endorse her as the only rational choice a voter can make this year

For President :

Many of you have already voted. This election has forced us all to do so. One of the two President candidates has hurled an existential threat to our people, the nation, the Constitution, and democracy itself.

Two weeks ago we endorsed the other major candidate, Hillary Clinton. We enthusiastically confirm it. Hillary Clinton must be President. There is no other viable choice.

Doubtless you have heard in the media a stream  of negatives roll against Mrs. Clinton. The accusations roll unstoppably. As far as we can discern, they are false, some of them grossly and knowingly false. We reject them. Among those who are voting for Mrs. Clinton are both Presidents Bush, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Bob Gates, and hundreds of Bush-administration officials — Republicans all. Mrs. Clinton has won the endorsement of almost every newspaper in the nation. Do you suppose that any of these would be voting for Mrs. Clinton if even one of the smears thrust upon her were true ? The question answers itself.

Mrs. Clinton is superbly qualified, with experience in  Federal governance unmatched by anyone who has not actually been President. She is smart, steady, dogged, and tough. Our foreign adversaries know this, which is why our biggest adversary, Russia, has worked overtime to undermine her campaign and bulk up that of her unworthy opponent.

The campaign of disinformation, espionage, hacking, and theft of private property engaged by Russia should disgust all Americans, as it repels us. All the more reason to elect the candidate whom Russia fears. Equally, Mrs. Clinton is feared by her domestic opposition. which has threatened to spend the next four years investigating her endlessly — at huge cost to the taxpayer — and to block her nominations to office, including to the Supreme Court. We take this threat as seriously as we do that from Russia. It is nothing less than sedition, and if reports are correct, it has the FBI’s New York office supporting it.

In a separate article, we will address this matter — a direct attack upon civic democracy and the rule of law. Suffice it here to say that Mrs. Clinton must be elected, for every reason, including a top to bottom purge of FBI operatives disloyal to the nation and its laws.

Other Endorsements : The Senate

Because Mrs. Clinton’s seditious, Republican opposition has stated its intention to block every executive move she makes, including nominations to offices requiring confirmation, we urge voters in appropriate stares to elect Democratic Senators and to oust Republican incumbents. Only if the Senate has at least 50 Democrats — Vice President Tim Kaine would break ties, thus 50 is enough — will Mrs. Clinton be able to exercise her Constitutional powers. We therefore urge voters to vote for the following :

Illinois : Tammy Duckworth (D) over incumbent Mark Kirk (R)

Pennsylvania : Katie McGinty (D) over incumbent Pat Toomey (R)

New Hampshire : Maggie Hassan (D) over incumbent Kelly Ayotte (R)

Missouri : Jason kinder (D) over incumbent Roy Blount (R)

Wisconsin : Russell Feingold (D) over incumbent Ron Johnson (R)

Nevada — an open seat :  Catherine Cortez Masto (D) over Joe Heck (R)

North Carolina : Deborah Ross (D) over incumbent Richard Burr (R)

If all of these endorsees win, the Senate will have 52 Democrats, enough to assure that Mrs. Clinton will be able to see her nominees to high office — including to the Supreme Court — confirmed. It is a scandal that Merrick garland, President Obama’s nominee to the High Court vacancy occasioned by the death of Justice Scalia, has not been able even to have a hearing and vote. The Senate’s Constitutional duty to “advise and consent” upon and to Presidential nominations does NOT contemplate stonewalling them.

If the endorsees all win, the re-election of our favored Republicans — John McCain (AZ), Rob Portman (OH), and Mike Lee (UT) can proceed without interrupting a Clinton nomination.

For Congress

Currently the Republicans have a majority of 30 out of the House’s 435 members. Given that most Congressional seats highly favor one party over the other, it’s most unlikely that 31 seats will change parties. Nor is every Republican Congressman au fait with the stonewalling tactic. That said, in those Districts where you have a Republican Congress person with a a record of opposition to everything, we urge you to vote for his or her Democratic challenger as long as said candidate has sufficient qualification to do the job.

— The Editors / Here and Sphere

We were often told, back when I was a student, that artistic genius anticipates life. Many times in my long life since, I have had occasion to understand the truth of what my teachers revealed to me.

So it is that I reference Peter Jackson’s “The Two Towers,” in the climactic scene of which we see the battle of Helm’s Deep. Wherein Theoden, seeing the army of Orcs massed at his castle wall, says to Aragorn, “such hate !” And then ‘and so it begins.”

Today, in our terrifying election, we see Helm’s Deep take place in our lives. We see “such hate,” and we have seen it begin.

But let us not mistake what we see. Those of us who are known as “white” because we have skin with less melanic chemicals than the skin of other people tend to think that our Helm’s Deep is all about us. It isn’t. In the contest between the Orc and Theodin that is now reflected in our election, most Americans aren’t conflicted at all. People of color stand with Theodin; almost all LGBT people stand with him; and most women join him tool. The conflict is one among “white” straight men only.

The conflict did not begin yesterday. It came to life on the day that Barack Obama was elected in 2008. It spawned in the brains of people who could not accept — felt threatened — that a Black man was now our leader. It began with the poison of racism, and it has always had racism at its core and still feeds on racist weed today.

For the insecure, weak and morally vitiated who felt themselves existentially threatened by Barack Obama as President, rescue came in 2011 when Trump, who sensed the racist current as yet unspoken, but strong running, brought forth his “birther” attack. From that day to right now, the racism he so precociously grasped has underpinned the entire energy of his campaign. Racism is the forge in which he, like Saruman in the movie, welded his army of Orcs.

Racism has proven a very prolific weed; and Trump has known how to grow it. Out of racism — a virulent, lethal racism — has grown the misogyny that underpins Hillary hate; the anti Semitism of the alt-right; and the homophobia on the alt right as well. Just as the Orcs of Helm’s Deep are depicted as hate-grunt, so the Trump campaign has wielded hate almost exclusively. There isn’t a single positive feature in his campaign of insult, belittlement, irresponsibility, fraud, and childishness, and this by design : because he knows that only all the varieties of hate that he can conjure into play can keep his campaign of death alive. But if that has been his game — and clearly it has — that it caught a wave lies at the door of those who have bought into it. You have full freedom to reject racism and all its progeny.

Why this hate among people deemed “white” ?

I doubt that many “white” people even realize that this crisis of hate arises from their being white; or that the Trump crisis is present only among “white” people. I am thinking that most ‘white” people, the men especially, but also some women, take for granted that power in our society is theirs alone. Just as it took long for the NFL to allow Black quarterbacks, or for the sports world generally to promote people of color; just as many law enforcement officers fear people of color rather than embrace them; just as — as President Obama has said — people of color hear the car doors locking as they walk by; just as people of color have warn their children about the dangers of :”driving while Black,” or even of sitting in a parked car, reading a book while Black; just as no Black person I know of has ever been compensated financially for the lynch murder of her ancestor 100 years ago; just as Black men are arrested multiple times more frequently than ‘white” men, for crimes petty if at all; just as women have to endure the sort of gloated groping that Trump boasted of in that 2005 tape; just as women have to hear people trying to tell them what to do with their bodies; just as women have no leadership role modes and, trying to elect one, find their candidate pelted with lies and garbage, by men mostly, but also by women envious of another — just as I list all of these and have in mind a thousand other denigrations, prejudices, falsehoods and envies — including vicious attacks on immigrants who may look “different” or speak a language other than English — that have arisen from obscure crevices into the gunked river of this election, slimed and cyanided, so the crisis of soul squeezes those take their safety and respect for granted because in America being “white” (and not LGBT) gives you that.

I say “crisis” because that’s what is going on. That is what Trump has made of this election. When he uses teams of lawyers to stiff people and fight them to exhaustion when they sue, the (white) people who tongue his heels see themselves doing likewise. When he says it’s smart not to pay taxes, his belly masturbators wish they could say the same. When he attacks journalists whose sin is to report facts, his mushroom fungi feel vindicated for believing what they want to believe.

In the bully poison of his laboratory of evils, his mouth slaves salivate over who thery can drown next in filth syrup.

He gives his stipple people the power of devils, of thunder gods, the delicious depravity of a destructo party that doesn’t end when the gong strikes midnight.

And what are his stipples afraid of, that needs be destroyed ? Simply this :that the future will not be theirs; that it will be different looking, different talking, different in gender roles, different associations, different economy, different liberties. That it will be unrecognizable, no north or west, no compass at all by which to get one’s bearings while those in it need no compass because the bearings are known and are made by them.

That is what they fear, Trump’s “white” people, and they are right: it’s a battle of life and death, and Trump has called them to iot because he knows that they know it and because he too faces life or death.

But in the movie, the good guys win the battle of Helm’s Deep. And so it will be in our election, and for “white” people; and for the future that our nation is inexorably embracing.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

^ Evan McMullin : potential leader of a new party to replace the wrecked GOP

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Who could have seen in advance that this election would destroy the Republican Party ? My party — 4th generation of my family — and that of Lincoln, the party born to assure civil rights to all people, even to die in that cause.

Who could have seen that my party would nominate for President a man vile in everything, destructive of both party and society, contemptuous and fraudulent, of disgusting sex inclinations, willing to sell his country to the Russians ?

Who could have foreseen that, he being nominated, the party leadership would almost all acquiesce and burp out excuses for his depravities ?

Perhaps you forsaw it. Many kudos to you in that case, I admit that I did not forsee it. I missed it entirely. I had assumed that, even as my party painted itself into an obstructionist corner and spouted absurd agendas that everyone could see were nothing but panders to dinosaur financiers, there remained sufficient commitment to governance that in the end, the party would see the nation forward.

Well, I was wrong. The voters saw what I did not, that my party’s talking points were nothing but prostitution and horse effluent, that none of it would happen except that dinosaur financiers would have their pockets lined by legislators who fund-raise all the time at posh penthouse soirees and “conservative” conferences where political burlesque flirts and fibs.

The voters then nominated a man so vile that he could never be elected, to throw eight months of “GFY”: at the party, my party, and pelt its leadership with political feces. And the leadership, mostly, had no way of cleaning up. This was the sort of nuclear option that we now see exploding. Scuttling your own ship.

So what comes next ? Because the Democratic party does not hold a monopoly of political truth, nor can it; there are no final decisions in the life of a democracy, only temporary resolutions; and none of these solve more than a few most urgent challenges. I wish I had the answer. I don’t; but I do have AN answer :

( 1 ) the party to replace the Republican must be all inclusive. People of all skin colors, from all nations, of whatever LGBT lifestyle and practicing whichever faith, or none : all must take an equal seat at the table and be called upon to lead.

( 2 ) the new party must ensure full empowerment of women, respect for women in all things and in all places and situations, and defense of women’s right to control their own bodies.

( 3 ) the replacement party must call for innovation in government. As our society and economy change from mass production to small mobile units, so our Federal government ought to decentralize many of its functions, better executed locally than from Washington because after all, people live locally

( 4 ) the new party must accept the global economy and profit from it, not fight it, because in the open information age of global trade and idea exchange, everyone lives in an economic everywhere as well as in a certain locality., Many of us, in fact, move many times in our lives, from place to place and even from continent to continent. The new political party must embrace and rationalize this condition of life and work.

( 5 ) the new party cannot seek to impose a platform on voters but must give voice to what a majority of voters want, answering the voters in a more convincing fashion than our opposition. Trying to impose a platform is the Leninist way — incompatible with democracy.

( 6 ) the new party must always go high. And if you ask me, it should make sure that John Kasich joins it.

( 7 ) It should also invite current independent candidate Evan  McMullin to lead its beginning, just as, in 1856, John C. Fremont, as the GOP’s first leader, preceded Abraham Lincoln as a Republican nominee for President.

The Republican faction most free of this election’s depravity is the group we call “movement conservatives.” At the forefront, leaders like Senators Ben Sasse (NE), Jeff Flake (AZ), and Mike Lee (UT) but also many of the Republican party’s most principled editorialists : Erick Erickson, George Will, Bill Kristol, David French, Jonah Goldberg, Ana Navarro, Louise Mensch, even Glenn Beck. And why not ? Structural reform is “Movement conservatives” top priority. They speak differently but greatly resemble the Republican reformers we used to call “process liberals” back in the day. As structural reform is perhaps the core Republican mission, it bodes well that its strongest defenders stand well positioned to lead a replacement party.

Joining them will be a smaller but not insignificant faction, the “socially liberal, economically conservative” group that includes Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan (of Maryland), Bryan Sandoval (of Nevada), Senator Rob Portman (of Ohio), and several Congressmen as well as a sizeable cadre of top activists. There is no place for this group; in the train wreck, but there will be a vital place for them in  the open-door replacement party.

Likewise, the Republican party’s national security community will move almost universally from the train wreck to a viable replacement party.

In addition to these three factions, the replacement party will be a strong vehicle for the many Republicans, of less ideological mind, who simply reject the fascism unleashed by the current nominee and who haven’t the time to combat it inside their own house.

I really think that this move must be made. It is a waste of time to combat the trolls, racists, anti-Semites, gutter mouths, and spite spitters, whose goal is to drive everyone but them away. They are few enough, and vile enough, that isolating them is far more lethal to their cause than allowing them to appear coexistent with those of us who would only be taunted by any kind of political association, even one of mortal infighting. Pariahs need be sent to pariah hell.

I welcome your thoughts. Can we establish a better new party ? Will we end the reign of depraved hate by isolating it and sending it politically to Coventry ?

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

During the past month, Governor Baker has moved more boldly than ever to implement his vision of state reform. Not everybody approves. I’m not sure that I approve, either, of all his current decisions: but no one can now doubt that he means to alter significantly the principles steering state administration. So far, his boldness has not cost him any popularity at all ; in a recent Western Massachusetts University poll, his favorable-unfavorable numbers stand at 68/14 — by far the highest of any Massachusetts elected official.

The big drama arises from Baker’s decision to have the MBTA hire private contractors to operate its money counting room and some of its vehicle maintenance. As these shifts put many Carmen’s Union jobs at risk, it’s no surprise that the union and its supporters in the legislature have mounted large protest rallies outside the State House. This week, Boston Mayor Walsh joined one such. Posted in social media, and broadcast on television, the rallies look big and loud; and doubtless many people watching at home wonder why has Baker taken on such committed opposition.

My own view of the decision — justified by the MBTA Board of Directors as a money-saving measure — is that basic operations should not be outsourced. I doubt that contractors’ employees will be any more honest at the money counting than the Carmen; nor do I find it wise to ship maintenance work to outside firms rather than modernize the T’s own repair shops and warehouses. I don’t like the idea of well-paid local workers losing their jobs. The T has many other places it can look to save money : selling off or leasing T-owned land; leasing advertising space on T billboards and the sides of buses; raising fares (which it did do this year). Firing well-paid workers should not be among them. Well-paid workers spend generously into the local economy. Why hurt them ?

Baker’s moves, and Walsh’s opposition to them, smell to me like re-election campaigning. Walsh wants full Labor support as he seeks a second term as Mayor this coming year. Baker wants the full support of voters who dislike the high pay and benefits accorded to unions via taxpayer dollars. It is certainly hard that re-election priorities imperil the prospects of workers, but that’s how campaigns take shape. I get that. I also get that Baker has angered the irreconcileables in his party by rejecting Trump, early and all the way. Curbing the Carmen’s dominance of MBTA operations is a red-meat way  for him to stroke these voters and to prevent their leaders from supporting a primary opponent : because if there’s one issue that binds almost all Republicans together, it’s tax dollar rigor.

Nor is Baker’s privatization likely to upset many non-Republican voters. As transportation management in Massachusetts moves from special interest protection laws to free market innovation — think regulated taxis giving way to Uber and Lyft — breaking one union’s control of the T’s budget and work rules looks like innovation. It may well be that. (Public worker unions have hardly endeared the voters to their case of late. Though the charter school cap lift initiative looks likely to fail, that failure has little to do with the teachers unions opposing it and more to say about voters not favoring, or caring about, a cause that helps only the poorest 25 percent of the state’s kids.)

Baker must feel that his privatization moves at the T have given him room to take an equally bold stand on another issue : transgender civil rights. He waited a long time before committing to the civil rights law known commonly as the ” #TransBill,” but he did sign it, and he has now moved early and clearly to declare that he will vote to defend it against the ballot initiative brought by those who would repeal the “TransBill.”

I applaud Baker’s bold stand here. He and Attorney General Maura Healey standing together assures that our state will  not abandon any of its residents on civil rights matters. It’s also good politics. Most Republicans who oppose the “:TransBill” are his personal opponents within the party. He isn’t going to win them anyway, so why not boldly support a law favored by about 62 percent of our voters ? Support for transgender civil rights is strongest in the cities and in the major suburbs of Boston — a vote that Baker  cannot afford not to win.

Yet his move is not merely political calculation. Baker understands that everyone’s life is her own and is not the business of anyone else; and he respects that integrity. I have seen it personally. My only critique is that support for everyone’s right to be who they are should never be “bold.” It should be a given. Unfortunately, in today’s America, lots of voters think that it IS their business to dictate to other people, and to kidnap the law to work their will upon us. I am thrilled that Governor Baker opposes such dictates. For whatever reason. Its’ good politics, and it’s the right thing to do.

In any case, this column’s focus is on how Baker has shifted the locus of state administration. The Baker mission is to wring a dollar of value from every dollar of taxpayer money. We all want efficient and reliable state services. Every state agency must now answer for its accounts. Serve the public, not the servers. That’s the message that Baker is sending to every state employee and to those who those employees answer to. It’s good, and it’s about time.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphdere

Last night’s Presidential debate, and the randy Donald Trump tape leading up to it, have elicited much comment about “alpha males.” By which is meant, I guess, men aggressively hitting on women: which when I was growing up was the assumed model of what “guys” were like. There were certainly plenty of guys who were not aggressive alphas. At the boys’ prep school and college that I went to, there were many shy guys — some of them “nerds,” some quite dainty — and there were several other brands of boy: fat and unathletic, artistic “beatniks,” aristocratic snobs — you name it.Still, the role model — the image that everyone pointed to when the word “Princeton” was mentioned was the ‘Jock” : the ultimate alpha male. The rest of us were left playing catch-up.

Today, that’s not so. The rise of gay male visibility has given us an entirely different role model, the “metrosexual” : a male who may well be “straight” — indeed, usually is so — but borrows mannerisms and tastes from  his gay male contemporaries. We used to call such guys “effete,” but today that [pejorative doesn’t hold. The “metrosexual” — not the “jock” — holds pride of place in today’s urban beehive.

Still, there are plenty of “jocks” — “alpha males” — and they have great cachet, much of it attached to the nation’s professional sports culture, sports bars, sport clothing, sport behavior and pastimes. Thus it was that Trump described THE TAPE as “locker room talk” rather than “trendy bistro conversation” or some such. Instantly we all knew what he meant despite “grabbing them by the pussy” not being a frequent phrase even in locker rooms. Two days ago one of Trump’s sons said that such talk was what ‘alpha Males” do. The term actually derives not from sports talk but from dominance games played by primates. It refers to the behaviors by which one4 male of a herd assumes dominance over the other males in the herd as well as its females and thus wins the right to breed. (Analogously, female horses selected by alpha steed are called “brood mares.”)

That Trump’s son should describe his Dad’s talk as that of an “alpha male” is quite instructive, isn’t it ? Is it a matter of pride for a wealthy, famous man living in our civilized nation to see himself as a breed animal ? Evidently so.

Clearly the description is liked by many millions of his followers too.

Yet today there are other models of maleness and more gender roles too. Living in an economy of options and a society of innovation — a world in which invention is prized and experiment is masterful — many. of us are thinking about sex and gender, thinking deeply about them in ways no generation has done before. What does it mean to be male ? Is “male” a fact or simply a social convention ? How can a person be able to perform sexually in a manner associated with “maleness” yet feel herself entirely female ? Answering these questions, all is conceivable, and much is provable on the ground, as it were, where personal behaviors take shape in the moment responding to interactions in the moment. And in these decisions we find that the “alpha male” idea isn’t dominant at all. many “males” deciding to pursue gender feelings don t even think of the “alpha male” concept :” it simply isn’t them is as far from their imperatives as a free lunch is from a wanderer in the desert.

I suspect that almost every boy growing up confronts the question “who am I” experimentally. Try out various who’s on the path to one “who am I” that fits. Some boys never settle the issue. There are no givens in life, in which identity is a mystery and feelings are difficult to interpret. But some of us know who we are. We simply know it, the n spend time — lots of time, perhaps — grasping it and accepting it. This is likely true of “alpha males” too. I know of many transgender women who once behaved in an “alpha male’ manner only to confront that that behavior was not who they knew themselves to be. It isn’t easy to be comfortable in one’s own skin, because no matter how strong a society’s gender norms, the individual person lives first of all inside herself: social norms stand at a distance, usually in the shape of other people who perforce do not occupy one’s own space.

Experiment means uncertainty, and uncertainty is assumed to be uncomfortable. I differ. For many people living in the diversity of a city, uncertainty is opportunity, is an invitation. And so the children of toady experiment with their selves. In the course of which some find that social norms of gender and dress aren’t a priori but a choice, as are all societal conventions. And if the society has chosen one set of conventions, rather than another equally compelling, why cannot I choose a different convention ? Here I am not speaking of transgender chiefly. Transgender people accept the societal norm; they simply embrace the side of it opposite to social expectation. Powerful an exception to the norms transgender is; but many men (and women) today who are NOT transgender are experimenting with the accoutrements of gender norms and adopting gender presentations for their own sake, not because they know they are not the gender that biology and/or society insist them to be. I enjoy seeing people do this sort of experimentation. The looks they adorn themselves with are fascinating, and liberating to my own normed assumptions: why can’t a guy, who knows himself to be a guy and who is NOT transgender, present in female norm ? (And vice versa as well.)

After all, in clothing there are messages about gender and norms, tailored in, as it were, that can be put on and taken off, just as can the norms themselves.

As an option rather than a must, the messages of clothing can be fun to send. Choosing the clothing associated with an opposite gender norm is liberation, empowering; it opens all kinds of search doors.

When gender non-normatives become an option, not an imperative, embracing them demonstrates to all of us that who we are — and can be — may never be boxed, that the choice is of the core of our lives; and that “alpha male,” too, is not a fate but a choice; a choice that comports just as great risks for the alpha as for those upon whom he aggresses.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere

The name of Curt Schilling is upon us in a context it shouldn’t land. The man who 12 years ago won the hearts of all Red Sox fans as he pitched through terrible pain to take our team to the World Series pennant now wants to be our United States Senator. Laudable ?  Not so much.. He has spoken in the vein of Trump, angry and bigoted, defending Trump’s worst misogyny, ignorant of social norms, dismissive of everyone who doesn’t taste his gripes.

This is not new to Schilling. In past elections he has mouthed his gripes in terms offensively devoid of remedy. True, a citizen has every right to speak like an asshole. A candidate for our state’s highest national office ought to rise higher; to take his or her mission seriously; to elevate all the people. Schilling may not in fact run against Elizabeth Warren; but if he does so in the Trumpian vein that we have heard so far — he can never have this paper’s support; and I can assure our readers that we will oppose him at every opportunity, if he runs and does not elevate his discourse.

The possible candidacy of an angry Schilling demonstrates the bearish Republican future that we have discussed at Here and Sphere many times. It has been obvious for some time now that even in Massachusetts, where comity and consensus have ruled since at least 1990, the coming of Trump assures that Massachusetts’s Republican activists henceforth feature radical rejectionists — people who eschew winning elections because all they seek is revenge for being shown up by the majority of us. The virulence of these rejectionists — a difficulty since 2004 at least — has increased manifold this year, with two consequences : the reasonable activists are giving up, or even leaving the party altogether, whereas the rejectionists, emboldened by Trump becoming the GOP nominee, are moving aggressively; in response to which the common sense faction of our GOP is exiting in larger and larger numbers.

Granted, that all is not lost. The youngest of our state’s GOp activists — under 30 — have a very different mkindew5r from Trumpian. They’re optimistic, they embrace our common political norms, they do not see enemies everywhere, they aren’t addicts of talk show hosts — because few, if any, listen to radio or watch TV — and they live with lifestyle diversity and multi=-culture. Many of the most eloquent are non-white, or LGBT, or both.

But their day is maybe a decade or more in the future. Meanwhile, we face a Schilling moment and probably others like it.

That this development gives rise to a Curt Schilling candidacy is, yes, deplorable. But its most serious effect is that it endangers the agenda and re-election of Governor Baker. In a poll taken  many months ago,m baker’s favorable-unfavorable standing was worse among members of his own party than with any other Massachusetts voting group. Today, Baker is openly reviled by a faction still fringe, but likely to grow. His politics is the opposite of Trumpian. He seeks consensus, he campaigns to and respects everybody, he supports inclusion. He is always a gentleman, never gross, never sounds like gutter. Just on style alone, Baker is a living, governing rebuke to the Trumpian way.

Baker’s rescue, and his re-election, will likely arise from our state not being Trumpian at all. The last poll I saw had Trump getting 26 percent of the vote. Baker is our state’s most popular politician, and though he has likely lost many union votes with his privatization moves at the MBTA, and opposes even the minimum agenda of immigrant activists,  on almost all other issues he speaks for a sizeable majority. The difficulty is the Republican party, which he leads. It’s only 11 percent of our vote, but a vital eleven. Baker cannot afford to win only half of that vote (51 percent did not vote for Trump in the March 2nd primary, 49 percent did.)

Worse for Baker still is that the media will report any loss of GOP dominance baker experiences, and we won;t be wrong to report it. Control of our GOP is Baker’s hole card in dealing with the legislature. If he doesn’t bring the entire GOP deck to the bargaining table, he looks weak, and a Governor cannot negotiate with a legislature three-quarters Democratic if he looks weak.

Baker will also be put on the spot if a Schilling candidacy does occur. He will be asked over and over again if he supports his “ticket mate.” With Trump, Baker made it crystal clear very early that he will not vote for Trump : and he told us exactly why. If a Schilling candidacy does occur, will Baker be as clear ? CAN he be ? Whichever course he takes, he risks his standing.

But perhaps I over-react here. The smallness of our state GOP allows Baker to reject a Schilling candidacy. Maybe he loses 4 of the 11 percent of voters who are Republican; but by dong so, he solidifies, for the vast majority of our voters, his reputation for principled moderation, inclusion, and reform and his rejection of rejectionism.

—- Mike Freedberg / Here and Sphere