Nominating Myself

America can live through most any kind of public blight.  We have historically survived our share of crises, some leadership corrected, some leadership generated as we seem to have now.  I never expected the people themselves to reject openness and honesty, though historically that's what it took to have Jim Crow and dysfunctional courts as a lingering Confederate legacy once slavery got out of reach. The writer George Packer of The Atlantic recently offered an address on receiving the prestigious Hitchens Prize for editorial writing.  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/packer-hitchens/605365/

He notes that writers, and many others, have become fearful.  We saw that with the attempt to remove a public blight of a President from Office.  People supported him out of fear of reprisal.  Avoiding reprisal was to them more valuable than Keter Shem Tov, the lofty Crown of a Good Name, which most have already tossed aside.  George spoke about fear:  The fear is more subtle and, in a way, more crippling. It’s the fear of moral judgment, public shaming, social ridicule, and ostracism. It’s the fear of landing on the wrong side of whatever group matters to you. An orthodoxy enforced by social pressure can be more powerful than official ideology, because popular outrage has more weight than the party line.

Ironically this all comes the week of Parsha B'Shalach when the escaping Jewish slaves feel trapped, forcing a decision to forge ahead, fight back, or give up.  It was the one Prince who did not have a reference to God in his name, Nachshon, who stepped into the sea first.  Sometimes you just have to say that honesty and character are gifts from God to be protected.

Delaware allows party members to nominate themselves as convention delegates.  I never expected to ever take a public political stand, but I filled out the forms to become a Bloomberg delegate.  Unlikely that he will get the state party's support over our former VP who lives here, but just once I need to pretend I am on a hiring committee and pick the right one, even at the risk of being voted out.  I emailed my self-nomination.