Voters Decided

When I participate in a Zoom session with folks from other parts of America, as they express irritation with their representatives, I almost gloat that my state remains pretty mainstream.  We do not elect racists, idlers seeking entitlements, or people who think green everything should get mandated by law.  I've not even encountered public hostility ot Jews or our attachment to Israel as a place of Jewish sovereignty, something that has no bearing in our local elections beyond the positions of those we send to Congress.  My state has a single dominant statewide party, the Democrats, with legislative majorities, though not quite supermajorities.  For the most part, our officials function as technocrats, people who understand economic growth, the importance of favorable bond ratings, and an element of sensitivity to those segments of the public that have not fared well. Divisive issues are settled by primaries, not general elections.  This biennial expression of citizens' preference took place this week.  Nationally, I sense a desire to hit the reset button, throw the rascals out.  And to some extent the registered Democrats did that.  

Statewide we returned incumbents and replaced a vacancy for State Treasurer with a professional finance expert.   For the legislature, many office holders got their termination notices, including my State Senator.  I've known him for some time.  A competent, decent fellow.  An administrative career professional rising to a position of prominence with my state's largest employer.  I voted for him.  He lost his primary, as he had been ousted from the State Assembly in a primary a few years before.  I got to know the Assemblyman who beat him, another very worthy fellow who seems more empathetic than my more businesslike friend.  

This round of primaries saw an upstart sub-party.  The Working Families Party seemed loosely organized, adequately funded, and probably made themselves more visible than some of the incumbents.  They turned over eight seats, cominng within a few votes on another.  They will have a presence in the legislature, though I am not sure what type of legislation they will either create or insert provisions into.  They do not seem woke, as in gimme what you deprived me of through history, but they set a divide between those who have prospered and those who have not.  Since only 22% of registered Democrats voted, they likely targeted neighborhoods where they would generate motivation.  Their candidate came to my front door early in the campaign season, as did my friend who lost.  I was not home for either, but they left their advertising.  

And elsewhere, Democrat voters expressed a desire for change, or at least avoidance of impropriety.  My wife's hairdresser's husband had held an elected county office for decades.  He got voted out, probably more related to unfavorable publicity that he could have avoided than any dissatisfaction with his performance in office.

And another familiar face enters.  One of my students from my synagogue teen classes finally won a seat somewhere.  He made it to County Council by about 30 votes.  He promotes himself as an environmentalist.  He seems a bit of a luftmensch, that type of fellow who sort of has a job but not one with responsibilities and advancement.  He does have engineering degrees from well-known places but I suspect his classmates have advanced in their careers more than he has.  And I've not seen him or his twin or his mother at shul in recent years.  But he got enough voters to go his way.  And his engineering degrees will likely pay off, as our county legislative business seems dominated by various forms of land use and construction.  We seem less focused on his issues of Green Space, though I can understand why his campagn to protect our county from endless suburban sprawl would have its appeal.

Might I have a unifying assessment?  Like much of America, my locale has its share of people dissatisfied with their circumstances.  They cannot accurately blame their legislature as much as scapegoat them, which they did.  I saw people who could be moved to acting by somebody knocking at their door or engaging them in some sympathetic way.  The removal from office of my wife's friend suggests that people have become more intolerant of impropriety, or even those who enable impropriety while remaining personally reputable.  Our statewide office holders have represented us adequately, getting returned by big margins.  And those sideshows of woke and blaming Jews did not get tested in my district as they have elsewhere.

I'm currently enrolled in a course on The Federalist Papers at the state university's senior division.  In explaining the proposed Constitution to the skeptics of New York State, our national founders highlighted how they needed to restrain factions.  They did this in part by imposing term limits of various types.  I saw the plus and minus side to their reasoning this week.  We definitely had a faction, this time Working Families.  We also had incumbents who could only continue representing us by getting majority votes.  Statewide we avoided factions, as the founders predicted the outcome of a big electorate.  Locally where the number of voters were few, promotion of niche interests prevailed.  These candidates could go on the attack, while incumbents had to defend.  Indeed, my friend ousted in the primaries, campaigned on what he did in office, not what he would seek if returned.  The foters understood the difference.  They opted for people who would look for a future, not having a past to defend.  For many wage earners, the past did not fare well.  They opted for something else.  The new people will have to define more clearly what that something else is.  They will also have to engage in coalitions to bring their agendas to the voters next time.

Selling Virtue

From time to time, I devote my analysis to a single article.  One from The Forward on a pundit's suggestions for reviving a defeated Democratic Party invites a paragraph-by-paragraph assessment.

His Op-Ed; My Thoughts

https://forward.com/opinion/756508/what-democrats-fighting-trump-should-learn-from-germany-hitler/

In the final years of the Weimar Republic, the German left was paralyzed by ideological divisions, by a failure to persuade broad swathes of the populace that it was capable of guiding the country out of its economic and domestic turmoil, and to neutralize the snowballing popular appeal of a budding despot — Adolf Hitler.

Weimar had power.  If Germany was not functioning, they owned that non-function.  

Today, the American left faces a similarly perilous moment. Since Donald Trump began his second term in office, the Democratic Party — shut out of power in both chambers of Congress — has been flailing around in search of ways to thwart his dismantling of the country’s democratic norms. And with the MAGA-fied Congressional Republicans marching in lock-step with Trump, he has repeatedly outmaneuvered the fractured Democrats.

The real problem, though, is they were voted out nationally for cause.  Donald Trump was not an unknown, as Hitler was by comparison in 1933.  American voters replace failing leaders with some frequency in our history.  We have had states seceed to protect their cultural norm of slavery.  We could have elected at that time a President who would compromise on this or a President who would say Good Riddance and salvage some of the prosperity of cotton diplomatically with a prototype of two two-state solution.  Lincoln and Roosevelt could only sell virtue if they could also sell competence.  Bill Clinton sold competence.  Trump's message, right or wrong, is that of a problem solver in a time when problems are large.   

We’ve seen a version of this movie before, in a different setting, with different players, and with different social, economic and cultural conditions.  Parallels are inexact, of course. But there are so many similarities that they warrant an examination of why the German left — and in particular the Social Democratic Party — failed to stop Hitler.Let’s go back to November 1918, with Germany losing World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicating, revolutionary upheaval erupting across the land, the leftist Social Democratic Party (SPD) taking over governance and trying to launch Germany’s first democracy under tumultuous circumstances.

From the founding of the Weimar Republic until its death in 1933,  the German left was fatally divided over the nation’s direction. The SPD was the strongest force on the German left. The German Communist Party also had mass appeal, but favored revolution and a Bolshevist-style regime over cooperating with the SPD.

The SPD itself was riddled with dissension — torn between pragmatic reformism and revolutionary Marxism. A faction called the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) split from the mainstream Social Democrats over ideological disagreements.a

And today we have a party divide nationally, though not state by state.   AOC is not a statewide official.  The Berne and Sen. Warren are, but they function as two of a hundred.  Neither occupies their Governor's Mansion.  Democratic Governors, functioning in states where people have graduate degrees, work at the forefront of commerce, medical care, and technology, have to sell competence and stability.  They fix roads, make sure there are enough insured patients to get their doctors paid, have adequate public transit.  And they have predictable failures that generate resentment, the DEI, their campuses, the decline of institutions of social engagement.

In early November, 1918, Independent Socialist Kurt Eisner led a revolution in Munich, overthrowing the Bavarian monarchy and proclaiming the People’s State of Bavaria. Eisner was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1919 by a far-right nationalist. Radical left-wing factions, including anarchists and communists, seized the moment and proclaimed the Bavarian Soviet Republic. This regime was short-lived, crushed within weeks by radical-right Freikorps paramilitaries and forces loyal to the central government in Berlin.

We have a certain failure of Democratic Presidents to restore order, even when public sentiment runs in that direction.  It takes a lot of forms from Vietnam/Racial violent gatherings, torching cars after a sports event, going to the Walgreens for cough syrup and finding it locked and the first two scarce salespeople do not have the key. This year, Jewish students chased across the college quad with bullhorns while College Deans and the invariably Democratic elected officials of those states and municipalities let it happen.  People fundamentally want to live peacefully.  It is the other folks who are troublemakers.  

The chaos, bloodshed and terror during the brief reign of the Bavarian Soviet Republic traumatized many Germans, weakened the left, and strengthened conservatives, monarchists, and far-right extremists like the German Workers’ Party, soon to become the National Socialist German Workers’ Party — the Nazis.

They sold themselves as problem solvers.  And people with the strength to bring order and prosperity about.

Although Germany’s political landscape was badly splintered, the mainstream Social Democrats — backed by trade unions  — were a prominent player through most of the life of the Weimar Republic, leading, or being a part of coalition governments. Their power began to wane as the Communists gained  traction on the left, while nationalist and conservative factions surged on the right. The Social Democrats’ decision to support Centrist Chancellor Heinrich Brüning — despite his use of emergency decrees — was seen by many as a betrayal of democratic principles, further eroding their credibility. By the time Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933, the SPD was politically isolated, morally exhausted, and institutionally sidelined.

Nearly a century later, the echoes of Weimar reverberate in Washington. Since Trump began his second term, America has witnessed a spree of executive overreach that has undermined democracy: mass pardons for convicted insurrectionists, an assault on birthright citizenship, extortionist tactics against higher education, law firms and the press, and a gutting of civil protections.

The question remains, can you sell virtue when competence lags?

Democrats, still reeling from Kamala Harris’s narrow defeat and locked out of Congressional power, have struggled to mount a coherent resistance. There have been bright moments: Sen. Cory Booker’s marathon floor speech galvanized activists, however briefly, and state attorneys general have eked out temporary restraining orders against some of Trump’s more brazen orders. But the party’s broader response has lacked urgency and imagination. Sometimes the Democrats’ flailing for relevance produces moments too easy to lampoon, like Chuck Schumer’s boast that he had used a Senate rule to strip the title “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” from Trump’s $3.3 trillion spending package.

It really wasn't a narrow defeat.  The margin was small in each swing state and nationally.  However, that small margin was maintained very consistently in each jurisdiction.  A plurality of 50% + 1 is an electoral approval for the majority to implement what they proposed.  My Jewish world conveys many illusions of its success.  I get newsletters from local Chabad, some of the dearest people around, showing photos of their events. The pictures look like SRO crowds.  When I attend a few, there are maybe a dozen participants.  My shul, a non-egal place, promotes women's participation.  Women read four verse aliyot, men read the others, but they create a promotional illusion of parity that isn't accurate but reinforces belief in gender equality.  Nor does it advance the capacity of some very talented women.  Cory Booker and Schumer had their fifteen minutes, or 24h of fame, but were fundamentally ineffectual people who put themselves on display.

Much like their Weimar counterparts, many of today’s Democrats appear trapped in the belief that the system’s norms will somehow correct themselves. But Trump flouts the norms on a daily basis, leaving the Democrats clutching a rulebook that has already been shredded by America’s 47th president.

One can argue that many norms were shredded before that.  Moreover, they are replaced with new norms.  One need only read an etiquette book from the 1960s and one from the 1990's, often revisions of the same code by the same author.  Early etiquette books did not have chapters on safe sex, which partner supplies the condom, or when female or minority employees should be assertive.  The emergence of anti-Semitism from the Sewer might be Trump 45, it's eruption on elite campuses certainly is not.  New taboos of microagressions correlate a lot more with social media and phone technology than they do with who holds office.  Abe Foxman, probably my favorite Jewish advocate, used to insist on taking advantage of the rules, whatever they happened to be.  

The Democratic Party needs to restore its connection with the masses, shed its aura of elitism, learn how to speak in a language that resonates beyond Beltway bubbles. An anti-Trump resistance movement has spread across the land over the past few months. Why aren’t prominent Democratic politicians at the front of these marches? Of course, there could be security concerns. So why not come up with some novel, creative ways to embed leading Democrats directly in the beating heart of resistance?

This one I almost agree with, though they may be handicapped.  I think one historical element that needs an answer is why the Red Wave predicted in 2022 did not happen, but came with consistency, if not a vengeance, two years later.  The elected officials were already in place.  The culture of identity politics, many would say pandering, had been established.  Closure of hourly earners from the American Dream had been settled.  Yet in 2020, Americans voted a Democratic majority and largely held it amid the culture wars already in place.  What changed is that they didn't own the problems once they were given their governing mandate.  They didn't just have elites, not that it mattered.  There is no greater collection of elitists than the current Cabinet.  What the voters said, I think, is that they botched their chance to govern fairly.  They protected a President, who I met many times as my Senator and admired personally, even though he wasn't up to the task.  By 2024, Harvard and Columbia where my parents wanted to send me and where I wanted to direct my kids, had corrupted liberal education outside the quantitative sciences.  Their supporters sought vengeance for petty verbal comments they perceived as infractions, such as saying there were only two genders or equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.  In short, my party governed poorly when given the chance.  Neither side has virtue to promote.  Instead, they are asking voters to judge who can bring us closer to the life we'd like to have.  A few human sacrifices along the way?  The pro-Hamas and pro-Ayatollah crowd, part of a Democratic base as the primary voters in NYC exposed, don't seem put off by the concept of Human Sacrifice to meet desired ends.

Here’s an idea: a rebirth of whistlestop tours. Recruit fifteen or so Democrats — potential presidential candidates plus a roster of other politicians and even non-politicians who are admired by Americans and have shown an ability to connect with people on a gut level. Have them board a train that would be christened the “Democracy Express.”

All depends on who gets a ticket to ride.  Needless to say, every losing candidate had high profile endorsements.

Just imagine this list of passengers aboard the “Democracy Express,” going from city to city, town to town across the land, talking about issues that resonate with all Americans: JB Pritzker, Andy Beshear, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Cory Booker plus proven crowd draws like Bernie Sanders and AOC. Add a couple of fresh faces, like Jon Ossoff, the young senator from Georgia, and Becca Balint, Vermont’s representative in the U.S. House. Make a show of a united front — with baseball caps and T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Democracy Express” handed out at every stop.

What this exaggerates is the reality of how few statesmen we have in the public arena.  Princess Di engaged the world, in large part because the future King, or his shadchan, opted for a charming lady too young to have a searchable past.  All the people on that train carry their assailable, searchable baggage.  I think the public abhors entitlement, as the 2016 results reflected.  The Dems have done much better with people like Princess Di, who come as unknown talents.  Jimmy Who, that nice Senator from Illinois.  I'd replace a couple of People of Entitlement with people of widespread respect.  Gov. Schwartznegger, Abe Foxman, NIH director Collins, maybe my own Senator Coons, Sen. Kelly, Gov. Stein, David Brooks or Bret Stephens from the NYT.  They need to restore respectability and sell wisdom, which still has a market to replace the illusion of virtue, which does not.

And as head of this delegation, why not Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington who made Trump squirm in the front row of a church service by asking that he “have mercy” on LGBTQ+ communities, undocumented immigrants, and others who felt threatened by his policies. In a way, Budde was a founder of the anti-Trump resistance. So she would deserve her own compartment on the “Democracy Express.”

Maybe she would.  But so would Rabbi Buchdal or Rabbi Wolpe.  Or the Dalai Lama who cannot vote.  But you also need people who build their congregations, not just inherit what somebody else created.

Defending democracy requires more than integrity—it demands strategy, daring, imagination, a unity of spirit, and the courage to call authoritarianism by its name.

I'll end my commentary on The Forward's op-ed with something I keep on my whiteboard in my line of sight from my desk chair.  It comes from an anthology called Jewish Megatrends.  Its editor, Rabbi Sid Schwarz of Clal, distilled his vision of Judaism into four core elements.

1. Chochma=Wisdom
2. Tzedek=Righteousness
3. Kehillah=Community
4. Kedusha=Sanctity

While the public votes for perceptions, usually scripted ones, of what enhancements they might experience based on who they offer power, the core virtues never disappear, even if their absence are not dealbreakers.  Each of the R Schwarz' elements has an illusion and the real thing.  Demeaning trans, Jews, Muslims, The Other Party in the name of Sanctity is the illusion.  And as Torah emphasizes by putting Mishpatim right after the Ten Commandments, making people's lives as decent as you can, that's Sanctity and Tzedek.  That's what the battered Democrats have a chance to promote.  But the cast of characters on Terry's train doesn't seem up to that challenge.

Offering Candor

 

You’re signed up for 2025 Delaware Democratic Platform Public Comment Meeting | Wilmington. Thursday, May 8, 2025 6:30pm - 8pm EDT Location TBA, Wilmington, DE, 19805 They haven't told me where to assemble, only what day.  I'm not sure they want what my analytical, evidence-based mind has to offer.  Like my synagogue and parts of my medical world, my Democratic party often regards challenges to Important People of Title as a threat to agenda, when it should be the creation of agenda.  At least my medical world thrives amid its limitations, though now being challenged externally.  While good and decent Democrats control our state government, a fair number of the party's endorsed banner carriers got voted down by party primary voters.  The capable prevailed over the ideologues.  I am mostly happy with the people who represent me in Washington and in Dover and the County offices. People are good.  Policies are more open to discussion.  If the national scene mirrored my state better, we might have fared better.  My FB feed and email get messages from our elected officials, though not from party officers.  They tell how they will make speeches in opposition to the unfavorable electoral outcome.  Somehow, the wisdom of Pogo, "we have met the enemy and he is us" remains in denial.  I attended my local committee meetings for a few years.  I left when a newcomer introduced a resolution supporting a scripted anti-Semite.  As I questioned these supporters by Zoom, they went to different colleges than me and had limited historical knowledge or analytical skills.  They did fine at crowdspeak.  We can expand that nationally.  My text messaging feed is basically useless, cluttered with pleas for money from the Democratic Party to resist what the voters expressed as their majority will.  I cannot use this smartphone asset for its intended purpose of connecting with friends and doctors, drowned out by multiple pleas daily for the generosity of my credit card.  At least ask what I think about what they intend to promote.  They haven't. So an invitation came for input.  From a senior whose first Presidential vote went to McGovern.  He lost.  The media publicity seems to get directed to his ideological descendants who I can predict will have a similar electoral result.  I have a lot of opinions, most very centrist.  I think people do best when they get university degrees or post high school training.  I missed out on the draft, and other forms of public service, though one job could be called a variant of public service.  Should it be mandatory?  I think America and the people who have to give some of their young adult time would be better off for doing that.  The Israeli's have already conducted that experiment.  DEI?  Been done right by the Endocrine Society. Been done with harmful results in a lot of places.  Middle East?  Protest in a dignified way like I saw the students at NYU do recently.  Vandalizing my car if I kee;p my tallis bag emblem side up on my car seat just needs zero tolerance as official party platform. Even personal stuff like staying married for a long time, being loyal to profession and employers, reserving a few evenings a week for the public good, supporting my preferred religious community, giving my kids music lessons and Hebrew School.  Those are timeless contributions that have atrophied in importance by much of the Democratic public faces. When I lived in St. Louis in the mid 1970s, it was a swing state.  My representatives were Democrats as was one Senator.  The democrats controlled the state house, with the Speaker living in a townhouse across the street from my apartment.  No more.  That majority has been piddled for a lot of reasons, never to return in my lifetime.  When voters flip for cause, they rarely return.  The flipped for cause.  Southerners to restore what never should have been.  Working people and farmers with legitimate resentment of their perception of disdain that college grads have for them, to say nothing of appeasement of groups that have accomplished less than they did.  Jews next, perhaps.  Like the others, for cause. While my party does not tap my mind for its wisdom when it can tap my wallet to continue piddling any chance they might have to acquire political power again, the invitation to express myself to them requires me to take advantage.  They know they need centrists, having chased away their share one electoral drip at a time.  If they tell me where this event takes place, I will do my best to attend.

Mugged by Reality

Several years ago, pre-pandemic, as I compiled my semi-annual list of things I'd like to do in the upcoming half-year, I committed myself to purchasing two new subscriptions that would challenge my mental capacity.  After soliciting advice, some helpful, some perfunctory, I settled on paid electronic subscriptions to The Forward and The Atlantic.  I have maintained each on autopay ever since.  Each week I strive to read six pieces in The Atlantic and ten in The Forward, with reasonable adherence.  While The Forward specializes in news and commentary targeted to a Jewish audience, The Atlantic is more eclectic.  It has staff writers, some very experienced, some promoted to journalism's big leagues after time in the minors.  It has frequent contributors, usually people who hold professorships with areas of study.  Each day's edition, as the electronic version has new articles daily, includes one or more essays from independent contributors.  In the political year, politics dominates the daily content.  The editors make sure that its readers like me receive analytically driven opinions worthy of the college grads who subscribe.  As the American election results had little ambiguity, experienced political mavens went to work sorting out their pet conclusions as to why our ballot boxes reflected a clear preference for Republicans across geography and most demographic categories.  

Two members of a think tank, More In Common, addressed polarization as perceptions, some right, others I think erroneous.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/democrats-defined-progressive-issues/680810/

Their op-ed asserts that Republicans prioritized their principal goals as a party, inflation control and immigration control.  As they campaigned, that was the message the voters received.  Democratic voters, when polled, set their top issues as inflation control and health care access.  Conceptually, there is very broad consensus on these concerns that does not segregate by party.  Everyone has either modified what they purchase from the grocery due to price, or at least grumble about what they perceive as cost exceeding value.  We all find our periodic doctor visits, or medical dependencies, a hardship in some way.  It could be economic costs of insurance or medicines, limited availability of appointments, doctors who look at screens instead of us, or concerns about how much of the medical care we get mismatched to what we really need.  People in some parts of the country feel the immediate impact of illegal border crossings more than others, but we've probably all encountered people from Latin America when we dine out or watch our neighbors have their yards upgraded.  Whether properly documented or not, we suspect that they cannot all be.  We live the same way irrespective of our political imprints.  We shop, travel, eat, go to work, drive on the highways beyond our own towns, have mixed feelings when we send our kids off to school each morning.  America offers a lot of common ground.  We all know, and pretty much agree on where the failures emerge, with some contention over who is at fault.

As the two authors note, with data to present, the perception of what the Democrats as a party aspire to deflects this common ground in favor of minority views.  Gender identity, ethnic entitlements, redress of historical wrongs, indignities of self with linkages to global groups with their grievances absorbed into our own.  That is not at all inflation control or health care.  Yet it hijacks the priority concerns, becoming subordinate to people with much smaller constituencies but more visible platforms.  Their essay focuses upon how issues of subordinate broad concern, indeed widespread unpopularity, became the disseminated face of the Democratic party.  Where the authors and I diverge is that they see this as a faulty perception.  I see it as a very accurate perception, one in keeping with my own personal experience, undoubtedly magnified throughout the American population by people just like me with parallel personal encounters.

On another personal semi-annual assessment, I concluded two years into retirement that I needed more human interaction.  The pandemic had just upended our lives.  My Senior Program at the state university where I mingled with others most weekdays had shut down.  Synagogue services paused, as Zoom was not an option for an Orthodox congregation on the Sabbath.  As I compiled twelve initiatives, I committed myself to joining two new organizations.  I had never engaged in formal politics, but my Representative District sought committee members.  I volunteered, gaining one of the two seats on that committee allotted to my voting location.  Great people.  We met monthly, mostly electronically.  On a few occasions, the elected officials arranged committee gatherings in a central location with refreshments and their presence.  Interesting, affable people.  The State Rep and Senator each had mental agility, an understanding of legislation, and a willingness to engage with nobodies like me.  We chatted about ourselves, about how to make schools more effective, why medical care has become more problematic for both doctors like me and patients like everyone else, about insecurities we shared with our changing world.  The 2020 election brought a Presidential change, one welcome to us, as most of us had met the new President when he represented us in the Senate.  The year also brought a US Census.  My polling place and the acreage it served would be shifted to a new State Representative as district lines were redrawn by the state legislature.  My seat would be shifted to the Committee of the new district, as the Democratic Party infrastructure apportions its committees by state representative.  Nobody contested my seat.  We met the first Monday of every month by Zoom.  However, our representative had no interest in engaging in committee meetings.  My Senator would remain the same, though she focused more on the previous district.  Another Senator had a territory partly within this district.  She came to the Zoom meetings, making a favorable impression. As a school teacher, she had interest and familiarity with public education, a big item in the state budget and top concern of many citizens.  In addition, my new committee chairman had contacts with the central party, bringing statewide office holders to our meetings.  We never met each other live, the forum where people exchange their spontaneous thoughts.  Agendas came across as more trivial, though the new district had greater prosperity than my old one.  Hardly anyone challenged the elected representatives who agreed to appear, which may be why so many agreed.  Discussions involved procedures and some land use, which is not the purpose of the committee.  I found the people half ideologues, half dull, with crossover between the halves.  I learned that some had been national committeemen for Senator Sanders' delegation.  What lacked were people like my neighbors.  People who worked in the offices and the labs, folks with a business, people young enough to have kids in school.  Many had been with the committee for decades.  One relative newcomer had once held office, another chummed with people of title.  Yet, I did hold the chair, a financial professional of skill and party loyalty, in proper esteem.  And the new committee contained a personal friend, a member of my own synagogue with his agenda that saw his home's property value in jeopardy based on a land use issue that had languished for years. 

Was either Committee a face of the Democratic Party?  Maybe the second one.  More political hobbyists, though the first had its ideologues.  The elected officials, though, all dependent on the support of the various Party structures, never forgot their primary mission of making their districts and our state as a whole the type of place people would want to live.  Contented voters reelect. While we only have one dominant party, we have contested primaries. 

I attended every meeting, engaged sometimes, bored other sessions.  Rarely irritated, but even then rationalized by knowing that everyone on the screen was personally ineffectual but enabled elected officials of quality to emerge.  I took my turn at the nuts and bolts of political committee operations, failing miserably at my one attempt at contacting voters by an automated phone bank.

Buddha once advised his disciples that when their personal experiences diverged from what their leaders promoted, act on experience.  My turn came soon, exposing the face of the Democratic Party to me in an unflattering way.  A young man had just requested to join our committee.  He had recently authored an op-ed in the local newspaper advocating a Gaza ceasefire.  I did not read it, and opposed what he recommended, but I also know that the newspaper has to select from a broad array of opinions submitted to their editors.  They chose his editorial, so at least the writing must have been coherent.  When he came, he requested that our Committee go on record as supporting a resolution by Rep Cori Bush demanding an end to hostilities in Gaza.  The massacre of October 7 2023 transformed me.  This Congresswoman was the placard carrier of the anti-Jewish African American view that we are oppressors who must be contained because we have too much control.  A scripted anti-Semite.  A River to the Sea you don't belong in usurped land type. And I once lived in the City of St. Louis that elected her.  I remained polite.  This is not the purpose of our committee. Our committee does itself a disservice disconnecting its upper middle class highly educated October 8 Jews.  The rest of the Committee thought this made the Democrats stand for the oppressed.  I prevailed on a technicality, as he was not a committee member who could make proposals.  After adjournment, I stayed on Zoom with the chair and one or two others.  These guys could spout the slogans.  I happen to be very knowledgeable about this subject, its history, its many facets.  Those I dealt with were not, and did not care to be.  Their slogans and alignments would suffice.   At the next month's meeting, we voted on his membership in the Committee.  I voted yes.  The Big Tent should be the Democratic Party's foundation.  Now with standing he brought it up again.  He had support.  Just like on the news, you could see who the River to Sea crowd were.  Some were on that Zoom.  That became the face of the Democratic Party to me that evening.  I resigned from the Committee the next day.  The chairman telephoned me.  We agreed that I would think about it for a month.  When the pre-meeting email reminder arrived, I affirmed that I am not willing to watch the committee that should be focusing on local issues that we all experience veer in that direction.  I would not be back.  My party has elected officials that I can support in their primary races, including another Jewish candidate who would ultimately get elected Governor.

A more chance encounter with the face of the Democratic Party came later.  As I was departing, a dedicated politico, one who ran legislative campaigns, applied to return to the District 10 Committee after an absence.  He had experience as a political operative, so having him offer those skills would advance the Committee's purpose of keeping Democratic candidates in office.  By chance, I would meet him not long after.  For several years I have engaged in a labor of love, scoring scholarship applications from HS seniors and medical students on behalf of a local foundation that administers the scholarship funds.  This organization holds two receptions each year which I make an effort to attend.  At the summer event, I saw the name tag of the man I had recently voted onto the committee.  He had decided to run for a new vacancy in the state assembly.  Our conversation touched a little on the committee.  I told him why I departed.  We did not discuss any issues related to his candidacy, but more to the fine organization that sponsored the event we were attending.  A cordial chat, then we went our own ways to the snack table.

Months later, in the midst of the primary campaign, his opponent's husband and daughters knocked on my door.  They being Jewish, recognized my mezuzah and Shalom welcome mat.  I listened to his description of what his wife supports, which is not very different from what I support.  I briefly told him why I had resigned from that district committee six months earlier.  Apparently, her primary opponent, the gentleman I had found affable at the reception, had confronted her as an inferior candidate because she was a Zionist.  That from a talented operative in my own District Committee, whose endorsement he had.  The primaries took place in September.  The Party Choice for that seat, their committeeman, lost to the lady whose family had knocked on my door.  Their choice for Governor, the incumbent Lt. Governor, lost to my candidate.  So even within the Party, its committee could not get the very middle-class Democratic suburban public, those people with degrees from America's most prestigious institutions, to vote for their less capable candidates.  My perception and that of my neighbors linked progressive ideology to less capable.

Not entirely accurate.  We did elect the first trans woman to Congress.  While trans is one of the characters that Republicans successfully linked to an undesirable Democratic social agenda, this lady, and she definitely looks female in person, spent her years in our State Senate functioning as a statesman, crafting legislation that considered minority sensitivities.  And while the progressive face has its intersectionalities where Jews sympathetic to individual causes are not welcome because we've been labeled their oppressors, this lady has been very gracious to us.  I met her at the Jewish National Fund breakfast, the ultimate of advocacy for Zionism.  While this stands out to me personally, it highlights the exception.  The real face is the support of scripted anti-Semites who think they know which oppressors will galvanize their political base.  It does, but at a very high price in November.

We saw the image of the Democratic Party, accurate or not, on TV last fall.  My alma mater made the news as its President got baited for all to see by a Congresswoman.  As students and non-students expressed support for a massacre as a legitimate liberation technique, our university president spoke of context.  With the financial protection of tenure, faculty of the highest IQs came out in support of River to Sea by any means necessary.  I think they vote Democrat, just like me, but for very different reasons.  They have no alternatives as Republican agendas summarily reject what they promote.  The Democrats make space in their big tent.  Those profs may not have an alternative voting pattern, but I do, with enmity to those folks as a campaign asset.  I didn't change my vote, but the national electorate rebuffed that view in a very consistent way. 

My alma mater was at the forefront of not just pro-Palestinian but pro-Hamas advocacy.  Nobody is more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight than me.  I want them to have prosperity and stability.  Nobody is more in favor of people of color succeeding.  But as a United Way Donor, I got invited to their annual meeting, even winning mucho dinero in their raffle.  This umbrella charity, this resource for the disabled, the disadvantaged, the elderly, had become woke right down to Spelling Bees for the Community peppered with buzzwords of Black victimhood.  The United Way exists to help these people succeed.  Their approach won’t accomplish that. After the meeting, I approached the spelling champion, a personable young man to ask if he watched the National Spelling Bee.  He knew nothing of it.  The coach apparently lacked the saichel to realize that his kids, dedicated to their own learning, could move themselves ahead in a national forum.  They are the face of the Democratic party, with people like us with marriages of long duration, diligence to our profession, generosity to our people and their people, and reverence for the icons of American history who enabled what we have, now labeled as their oppressors.  River to the Sea with fists in the air and faces obscured.

Those are the side issues that divert attention.  But prices and immigration drive decisions of voter preference.  I did a seminar this year for a course that I take at the state university's senior division.  The course is part of an ongoing series on NYCity, as the instructor has a fondness for Broadway and lived there much of his life.  Due to the economic activities that dominate our region, science enterprise, corporate law, banking, and medical care, many from Metro NY have settled here to make our living, including me.  We are very attached to this course in retirement.  My presentation involved people who a visitor to NYC might meet.  City employees, vagrants, street vendors, and diplomats.  NYC has people assembling from everywhere.  In researching the section on vendors, I found an advocacy group that compiles data about who the people manning the stands on the street are.  They originate disproportionately from Latin America, with a second cluster from North Africa.  Those who sell food are regulated separately from those who sell merchandise.  Of the food vendors about a quarter are undocumented residents, about an eighth for the merchandise sellers.  And that's from their own advocacy group.  Remove them all, as the incoming administration suggests, and hardship will likely ensue, both to other illegal residents who work and shop at the vendors and people who work, visit, or live in Manhattan where lunch at the cart is a welcome convenience.  Being sympathetic, or at least not disruptive, could have been the Democratic public face, one that affirms the kindness that most people of either party have.  They didn't take that approach.  The Republicans had a plan, likely a trouble-making one with an element of cruelty.  The Democrats not only did not propose a plan, but held the responsibility for the current circumstances.

And prices.  I do the family grocery shopping.  Once a week I read every page of the circular of my principal supermarket.  As I review each column, I write desired items on a notepad.  On the front, things I must get.  On the back of the page, items I would consider, a much longer list than the front.  From this I can plan menus for the week around what discounts the grocer is willing to share with me.  A challenge, almost like a sport, to keep the conglomerates that supply most of our food competitive with each other.  And they are.  Price gouging claims, the face of the Democratic progressives, seem inaccurate. Prices are not uniformly excessive.  Things with licensed team logos and pharmaceutical patents carry enormous premiums.  Intellectual property is lucrative, but defensibly so.  Raw produce, meats, and seafood, those commodities, always have discounted items.  The highly processed foods, those snack items, sodas, prepared foods for reheating, carry the brunt of inflation.  I suspect this reflects supply chains, as these concoctions by the best and brightest of the corporate food labs require global input of ingredients all being at the factory at the same time.  They also support consumer panels that maximize the taste acceptability to the public and assess what people are willing to pay.  That part will probably not change much as political ideologies shift every few years in America.  Democrats controlling prices?  For medicines they did.  For food, there's a very big downside when products people want become scarce.  What can change are incentives to producers.  Part of the Republican campaign to address the problem, even if not a great solution.

My wife defaults to MSNBC when she needs a break from more redeeming PBS and TCM.  Their talking heads spent the campaign telling us the dangers of Donald Trump.  He spent the campaign telling us how he would use Presidential power to address our woes.  My conscience and character told me to vote blue, and I did.  My intellect, those mental elements of binah and saichel incorporated into our Jewish central prayer each day,  questioned that.

Did the Red Wave crest because squeaky wheels within the Democratic party misrepresented it, as The Atlantic's essayists state?  I don't think so.  The product distinction between the two voting options seemed clear.  Inflation and health were concerns for sure, but solutions did not emerge.  The face of the party repels even people like me with multiple university degrees and generational gratitude for what FDR and LBJ did to enhance lives of Americans in economic or racial disadvantage.  That summarizes my experience this past year.  The voters saw a very accurate position of the party the majority rejected.  They acted on experience, just as Buddha advised us.

Democratic Endorsements

Having been booted from one representative district to another by the need for our state legislature to create districts of reasonably uniform population, I still retained my committee position in the new district.  We met via Zoom with other districts to hear from those holding statewide office who desire the party's endorsement.  Only one incumbent personally present, a very sincere State Treasurer who has done some useful things.  Our Congresswoman and our AG were represented by their campaign managers.  It would have been better to have a Chief of Staff present instead.  Our Auditor, recently convicted of some not entirely petty misconduct, though not a felony that would have made her ineligible to hold office, stayed away, but her primary opponent made a compelling case for why she would be a better replacement.  I agree with her, as the 10th district unanimously offered our endorsement.

My newly assigned district seems more like me.  The housing patterns bring us people dominated by Smart America, those university educated professionals that make the world sparkle.  We live in attractive neighborhoods which we keep free of litter.  We desire good schools.  We desire honesty.  Don't know how many have defected from their childhood religion or retained it.  We express ourselves in writing or by personal protest, but looting flat screen TVs from K-Mart is not part of our protest protocol.  Yet we are highly sympathetic to Just America's causes, though repelled by its tactics.  Our Treasurer expressed it well.  People who don't yet have pensions would benefit from having one.  Create one for them.  And she did.  Don't begrudge state employees benefits similar to private employees.  It expands Smart America.

AGs rep took a similar approach.  Harsh on predators who shoot us, steal from us, or who profit from drug supplying whether street people or corporate conglomerates.  Easy on the petty offenders who don't pose a public danger.

The congresswoman's manager had a bit more of a Progressive agenda than the Congresswoman herself seems to convey.  I think she is also fundamentally part of Smart America, one who knows the hot button issues, is aware of the damage recent federal directions will create, but really only offers making a statement with the illusion of making a difference.  The difference will need to be made by voters elsewhere. 

Good Meeting.  I'm part of Smart America and now more fully immersed among similar minds.

Redistricted

Our US Constitution mandates a census for the purpose of apportioning legislature representation, misused since the early days of our republic with favorable and unfavorable sequelae that have accrued over time.  States have legislatures too.  Our state uses the Federal Census in its districting.  One of the rewarding projects I have undertaken of late has been to serve as my election district's representative to the Democratic Party.  Good people on the committee, nearly all younger, I assume a little less prosperous, and perhaps a little left of where my worldview stands.  They seem committed to the underserved, which is good, not terribly analytical, which may not be good.

Proposed redistricted maps came out, placing my home smack it the center of a different district, a notably more prosperous population of professionals and tract housing.  Looking at the demographics, we have slightly more Asians than Blacks, which I assume reflects employment of scientists and a priority for the top schools when deciding on a home purchase.  There are no religious demographics included but the new district pretty much absorbs most of our state's Jewish citizens.  

I'm a little sad about being displaced, as I really liked the other people on the Committee and the elected officials who nearly always attended our Zoom meetings.  Whether a homogeneous or a diverse voter base is preferable, I'll leave to the political scientists. These new borders seem to create a district of what some call Bobo's, people like me, those educated, prosperous Americans who invest in the education and security of our kids, those people George Packer in his landmark article How America Fractured into Four Parts https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/ called Smart America.  The other district, my current one by number, has a much higher Black representation, less wealth, and aspirations more reflective of the article's Just America.  The current rep, a Black fellow with a good heart and impressive energy, has done his best to legislate mostly small projects that truly enhance the lives of those people, leaving the larger projects with broader impact to our State Senator whose origins and agenda are that of Smart America.  Yet despite the economic divide of who lives within Election District 7 now, there doesn't seem to be much conflict.  Even if bounced from the monthly meetings once the new districts take effect, these are good people to help out when it comes time to support candidates.  As it is now, they schedule all civic events on shabbos.  Perhaps the new district, where there is more of a critical mass of Sabbath observers, will offer other alternatives.

Helping the Democrats

As a new Election District representative, I find myself getting some combination of acclimated and socialized.  We had our monthly meeting, attended by two state senators, both rather professional, and our state representative who has shown himself dedicated, honorable, and more productive than I would have expected.  Our regional chairwoman has remained welcoming and organized.  A few subcommittees have been tasked and seem to perform well.

On a more expansive scale, I attended a six session course called Best Practices Initiative, the Democratic National Committee training program for its volunteers and maybe some paid staff too.  Very informative, though with all the intricacy created nationally the electoral results seem to lag behind.  I learned about organizing, fundraising, social media platforms, making alliances, recruiting, and correcting missteps.  All have applicability far beyond any political constraints.  And at least at the state level, the message has been promoting us, not undermining the opposition.  This may be why I drifted in their direction from the center.

DNC Training

Along with about 1300 other Democratic volunteers from all but three of the territories in which they have a presence, I attended my first training session, conducted by two personable and competent young ladies.  They spoke about organization building, how to be welcoming, how to solicit volunteers effectively, how to convey a message though creating good content for that message must come in one of the later sessions.  These are really basic principles of organizational structure that apply to successful places and places like my synagogue where they probably understand them better than they implement them.  I'm not yet convinced that the Democrats implement them optimally either, but every encounter I have had there has been cordial and then some.  When you address an audience of that size, people there based more on good intentions than on personal intellect, you have to reduce the message primarily to bullet points, which they did well.  

Some of what they recommend runs contrary to how I personally receive messages.  Don't take no for an answer or get the recipient to commit upends my default to let me think about it and decide later.  They recommend not having a later option, which I'm sure will deflect people like me who need just that.  I wonder how much science or experimentation really justifies the things they recommend.  More likely these are implemented, the election occurs, and the mavens tease out the results of what went well and how to tweak what did not.

It's a fairly intensive mini-course, two nights a week for three weeks.  Kind of fun to follow along.

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.

Combining Festivals

Hanukkah has arrived, roughly its usual time on the American calendar, always its usual time on the Hebrew Calendar.  Opened our first of eight gifts, mine being an eyeglass holder to keep behind my bed to keep my glasses from falling behind the bed.  My wife, a cat aficionado, got a cat doll that can be warmed in the microwave and hugged.  We lit candles, greeted each other mostly electronically, took the Delaware Democrats to task in cyberspace for posting a shabbos menorah with seven branches instead of the traditional Hanukkiah with nine.  They updated their image. 

Hanukkah, while festive in its own right with its own special traditions and foods, does not always occur in isolation.  The movability of the Hebrew and American dates and Hebrew leap years comprising a full month every seven of nineteen years, sometimes the Hanukkah season changes.  It can rarely coincide with Thanksgiving, more frequently coincide one of the eight days with Christmas and nearly always merged into the Christmas season.  This year I got a special overlap, with my wife's birthday falling on the First Day, as mine sometimes does during Pesach.

Thanksgiving and birthdays derive from our public calendar, one a fixed date the other with a small amount of variability so this birthday and Thanksgiving are always not far from each other.  I have become the Grand Chef for both and seem to derive my own measure of pleasure from the menu planning to the execution to the cleanup.  Postponed the potato latkes until later in the Hanukkah festival, substituting as the starch shlishkas, a gnocchi-like pasta shaped as a nugget, one of the treats offered to me by my Hungarian maternal grandmother and now propagated, though via a yiddish cookbook recipe.  And we had roast duck, a very rare treat of limited availability.  Royal nuisance to make, again dependent on a classic preparation method from an encyclopedic cookbook, but worthy of a special occasion.  And an almond torte known as torta del re, this one from an Italian Kosher cookbook, another special occasion item, though with readily available ingredients and with modern cooking appliances not very difficult to make. 

So two occasions overlap, a birthday and Hanukkah, neither in competition with the other, unlike the secular festivals which sometimes do undermine each other.  All are special, even Christmas which was celebrated by my taking medical call each year as part of a specialty group and now going out for Chinese like the rest of the Jewish community that day.  We can now proceed with the rest of our Hanukkah for its own sake.

Voted Out

My home state has voters that run mostly blue.  Being a small state geographically, access by voters to those the majority has elected comes much more easily than in places with millions of people but the same number of senators that we have.  Little nobody me has seen virtually all my elected representatives from county coucil to US Senator.  I've spoken to most, written to some, worship with one, and heard all live.  Like everyplace else in America we had our 2018 mass political participation in the form of voting.  I voted a straight ticket, only the second time I have ever done that, knowing that I will be voting against the more personally capable incumbent candidate and knowing that I would be casting my preference against the one candidate that I know best.  By late night, the results were known, Democrats swept statewide and in pretty much in my county, unseating my friend who had been in place for twenty years and a very professional state official who is a pro at the role the previous voters had elected him to do.  Had they worked for me in a company or in a non-profit, their jobs would have been in no danger.  No boss would accuse them of underperformance or undermining company goals or bringing discredit to the firm in any way.  More likely they would have gotten performance bonuses.  But they are not employees of my company.  They are more like contractors sent to fill a position by the Republican Party.  If I do not wish to maintain relations with their sponsor, their fortunes follow.  So two very good public officials of significant tenure and achievement fell victim to their standard bearer in the White House who does his best to create victims, most intended, a few like these men and two people in other districts of long tenure become his victims unwittingly and probably undeserved, though the intentional victims are also mostly undeserved.

This has come up in a different form.  I do not buy Papa John's Pizza, haven't for a while.   I found their pizza inferior the two times I bought some.  The standard bearer's presence favorable or not would not make me a customer and the amount of pizza that I buy would not move the fortunes of any company in any direction.  But I did find some of his public positions offensive and superimposed that on his company.  I do like Barilla pasta.  It always comes out better than Ronzoni or Shop-Rite brand but costs more, so when it went on sale for a comparable price I would get a box or two.  No more.  The spokesman takes a public stance that I find offensive, the gradient between his brand and the other brands is small, and my life and those who eat at my table will be no different whichever brand of pasta goes into the meal.  Barilla is gone.  I do not clip the coupons for it from the weekly circular.  There is never an incentive to divert my money to his pocket to demean groups of people he doesn't like.  I won't knowingly be an accomplice in that.  But my purchases do not change a stock price so if my mutual funds want to own some of the stock, they can buy it for my portfolio.

Who represents you matters.  It is not just a matter of personal competence, which is widely distributed among both parties and among companies with stellar reputations and among companies you choose to shun.  As a physician, my reputation depended on my employers and on the other people within the upper tiers of the organization who create policy.  The political parties are no different, even at the sacrifice of at least two men of real talent and professionalism.